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# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.# 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 










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LC Control Number 



tmp96 025713 





































SERMONS 


ON 


INFIDELITY. 



BY ANDREW THOMSON, D. D. 

MINISTER OF ST GEORGE’S, EDINBURGH 


FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, 
WITH A. 

PRELIMINARY ESSAY 


/ 

WINDSOR, VT.: 
RICHARDS AND TRACE. 
NEW-YORK : 
JONATHAN LEAVITT. 


1833 








CONTENTS. 


SERMON I. “ Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you 
an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” 
General Proposition—He that rejects Christianity will reject 
all religion. Proof, 1st, from the history of Deism ; 2d, from 
the prevailing infidelity. 

SERMON II. Same Text. Proof continued—3d, from the objec¬ 
tions of Deists to Christianity ; 4th, from the consideration 
that the causes of Infidelity are not found in the evidences 
of Christianity, nor in objections to it: but in, 1st, inconsid¬ 
erateness, 2d, intellectual pride, 3d, moral depravity. 

SERMON III. Same Text. Infidelity is hostile to the interests 
of morality. 

SERMON IV. Same Text. Infidelity destroys the happiness of 
those who embrace it. 

SERMON V. Same Text. There is no foundation for the gra¬ 
dations of Infidelity—in moral tendency and desert they are 
alike. Illustrated, 1st, in those who admit one part of rev¬ 
elation and reject another; 2d, in those of impious and im¬ 
moral lives; 3d, in those who live a reputed good life, but 
without regard to the principles of the gospel. 

SERMON VI. Same Text. Illustration continued—4th, in those 
who are worldly minded ; 5th, in those who neglect reli¬ 
gious ordinances; 6th, in those who are indifferent to the 
success of Christianity in the world. 

SERMON VII. Same Text. The sinful nature of unbelief, arid 
its awful consequences to the unbeliever. 

SERMON VIII. Same Text. Application—1st, to parents; 2d, 
to young men. 

SERMON IX. Same Text. Application continued—3d, to those 
in the higher stations in society; 4th, to those in inferior 
stations ; 5th, to ministers. 


<* 




/ 


4 





PRELIMINARY ESSAY, 


BY THE AMERICAN EDITORS. 


The work which we now present to the public is, in 
some respects, peculiar in its character. Most treatises, 
intended to establish men in the Christian faith, have 
been written in defense of Christianity, and have of 
course been chiefly occupied in exhibiting the evidences 
of its truth. Our author adopts a different system of 
warfare. He leaves defensive operations to others, and 
commences an attack upon infidelity itself. He makes 
the infidel feel that things may be said against his doc^ 
trine, which it is no easy task to answer, and which 
must be answered, or he cannot, with any appearance 
of reason, retain his infidelity. The infidel is thus put 
upon the defensive ; and, as the diligent reader of this 
treatise will perceive, the successful defense of infidelity 
is impossible. That infidelity has its origin in evil; that 
it leads its votaries to reject all religion; that it depraves 
their morals; that it destroys their happipess ; that, for 
these reasons, it is worthy to be abhorred and avoided, 
are charges which our author brings forward and sus¬ 
tains ; and the infidel can neither disprove their truth, 
nor escape from the conclusion to which they lead. 

Another peculiarity of the work, arising naturally out 
of that just mentioned, is this: The author takes pains 
to fix the charge of infidelity on all to whom it belongs. 
He would make all who are infidels in spirit and in prac¬ 
tice, know and feel that the argument applies to them ?— 
that, however they may disguise it under the forms and 
profession of Christianity even, still they really be¬ 
long to the ranks of infidelity, and, continuing as they 
are, must encounter the woes that cluster around its 
path, for they partake of its guilt. And on these con- 
c 2 


siderations, in the end, he grounds an exhortation to 
men of every class and station, to exert themselves for 
the expulsion of infidelity from the world. 

Our author’s plan, therefore, did not demand, nor even 
permit, a full exhibition of the evidences of Christianity. 
He has barely alluded to some of them in the second 
sermon. Among them, he mentions “ the experimental 
evidence,” with as much apparent confidence in its va¬ 
lidity as any other. This species of evidence has not 
usually received such treatment. Most, who have al¬ 
luded to it, have seemed to regard it as satisfactory, per¬ 
haps, to the Christian, but of little or no use when ad¬ 
dressed to others. We shall attempt, in the short space 
which the compass of this volume allows us, to rescue 
this species of evidence from this neglect, and to show 
what influence it ought to have, on the minds of those 
who have no experience of the truth of Christianity ; 
and we do this the more readily, because we think it 
will serve to strengthen our author's conclusion, that in¬ 
fidelity has its source in the badness of the heart. 

The Bible lays down, as the law of righteousness, 
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;” in other 
words, “ Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
you, do ye even so unto them.” This, every man knows, 
or may know, to be right. He need not ask how or by 
whom the words of this law were first published on 
earth. He need not inquire through what channel they 
have been handed down to us, whether they have al¬ 
ways been accurately transcribed, or whether they are 
correctly translated. He need not resort to any testimo¬ 
ny whatever. He has only to look at this law, and hon¬ 
estly ask himself, “ Is not this right ?” His own mind 
will give the answer. The eyes of his own understand¬ 
ing can see its righteousness, without extraneous aid. 
Every man knows, or may know, that so much of the 
Bible is true, is right, is binding upon him. He may 
know this for himself;—not merely admit it as probable, 
all things considered; not merely be convinced by a bal¬ 
ance of testimony that it comes from a trust-worthy 
source ; but he may know, absolutely know, for himself, 
from his own contemplation of this law, that it is and 
must be true and right, and that to deny or doubt its truth 
and righteousness, is absurd. 


7 


The Bible teaches that men are sinners,—transgres 
sors of this law. This, too, every one knows, or may 
know, to be true of himself. Every one knows, or may 
know, that he has not always, done unto others, as he 
would that they should do unto him ; that he has not al¬ 
ways spoken of them, as he would that they should speak 
of him; that he has not always felt towards them, as he 
would that they should feel towards him; and that there¬ 
in he has done wrong—has sinned. He need not be de¬ 
pendent on others for this knowledge. He has only to 
look at the law, which he knows is right, and at him¬ 
self, as conscious of having violated that law, in order to 
see for himself, and know with absolute certainty, that 
he has done wrong, that he is blame-worthy, that he is 
a sinner. No possible decision of any question of an¬ 
cient history, or criticism, or any other subject whatev¬ 
er, can rightfully be allowed to throw a single shade of 
doubt over this decision —that toe have done wrong. 
Though it be said that the Bible is translated incorrect¬ 
ly, or the original has been altered, or the apostles never 
wrote it, or they were deceivers or deceived, or that 
Christ never lived, or even that there is no God,—still, 
we know, absolutely know, that we have done wrong. 
On this point, too, the Bible, as we have it, speaks the 
truth. 

The Bible teaches us, too, that “ there is no peace to 
the wickedthat they “ are like the troubled sea, which 
cannot rest." But we must be careful that we do not 
misunderstand this doctrine. The Bible not only grants, 
but teaches, that the wicked may be very prosperous in 
their temporal affairs, and very careless of their spiritual 
interests. They may forget God, forget duty, forget 
their own accountability ; and in their forgetfulness and 
their thoughtlessness, they may sing and dance and make 
merry, and glory in their victory over conscience, the 
fear of God and the anticipations of another world. But 
still, they have no peace ; nothing in which their minds 
rest , as a satisfying good. They are ever disquieted 
with a restless hankering after some good, which they 
have never yet tasted; after a happiness, differing not 
in degree merely, but in kind, from any thing they have 
ever enjoyed. At least, there isa restlessness about them 


8 


which, they may see, if they will reflect, no degree oi 
such enjoyment as they have yet found can ever remove. 
Whether it can be removed at all, or whether this con¬ 
tinual dissatisfaction with our present state and aspira¬ 
tion after something higher is the necessary condition of 
intellectual existence, is altogether a distinct question. 
The Bible says that the wicked are without rest. We 
know that we are wicked, and without rest.' And when 
we consider our restlessness, what it respects, and 
whence it springs, we know that all other wicked intel¬ 
ligent beings must be restless too. So far the Bible is 
true. We know it to be true. We depend not on the 
testimony of others, but we see its truth for ourselves. 

The Bible promises “ rest unto the soul, - ’ on condition 
that we obey its requirements. This promise is given, 
with direct reference to the restlessness just mentioned ; 
and as that restlessness is a matter of consciousness, 
so also the rest promised, if ever attained, will be a mat¬ 
ter of consciousness. We now know that we are dis¬ 
quieted. We shall then know that we are disquieted no 
longer ; that we have found that, for the want of which 
we were formerly restless. If peace of mind, tranquilli¬ 
ty of conscience, is given us, we can know by our own 
conciousness, that we enjoy it. If our views of Chris¬ 
tian truth and performance of Christian duties fill us 
with peace, it is possible for us to knoio that they fill us 
with peace. Our knowledge of it will not, in any de¬ 
gree, depend on the testimony of others. We need not 
come to this knowledge by any process of argumenta¬ 
tion, in which there might be an undetected fallacy. 
The fact, that we do take such views of Christian truth, 
and that these views do give us peace, even that peace 
which we could never find from any other source, and 
for want of which we were always disquieted, these facts 
lie wholly within the circle of our own consciousness, 
and we may know them just as we know that we are 
glad, or sorry,or that we hope, fear, or doubt.—We do not 
say of this knowledge, that all have it, for some are evi¬ 
dently destitute of it; nor, at this stage of the argument, 
that all can have it, for this would be taking far granted 
the truth of the Bible on this point. We only s;iy that 
if the promise of the Bible is fulfilled, those to whom it 


9 


k fulfilled may know it; not merely think it probable, 
but know it. 

The Bible promises, along 1 with this rest, and as the 
result of those views which give us peace, a strength of 
holy purpose, which shall enable us to do our duty. It 
does not promise that we shall enjoy this in perfection at 
first, or even during this life; but it does promise that 
these views shall give us a strength of spirit to resist 
temptation and perform Christian duty, of which we 
were previously destitute, and which, by the cultivation 
the Bible requires, shall increase as we grow older in 
the service of Christ. It does not promise that we shall 
continually grow purer in our own eyes; for, as we as¬ 
cend one height after another in our progress towards 
the throne of eternal purity, “ Alps on Alps ” shall arise 
before us, and new and higher prospects of holiness be¬ 
come visible and visibly accessible to us, and we shall 
find ourselves farther from the summit than we suppos¬ 
ed ourselves to be when at the base; but it promises us 
a real progress, an increasing mastery over those views 
and feelings which formerly led us astray, and an in¬ 
creasing readiness and delight in the performance of 
those duties to which we were formerly averse. If this 
promise be fulfilled, its fulfilment will be a matter of 
consciousness, and we may truly know that this part of 
the Bible is true. 

Now suppose,—and the imagination, even of an unbe¬ 
liever, must be able to make the supposition—that a per¬ 
son has actually found evidence of all these points in his 
own consciousness;—has seen and known that the moral 
law of the gospel is right, and binding upon him ; that he 
has transgressed that law,and is blameworthy for his trans¬ 
gression ; that, by this his wickedness, he has deprived 
himself of peace ; that he has received the doctrines of 
the gospel, and relies on them as really true ; that this 
reception and reliance has given him the peace which 
he had lost by transgression, and brought him back to 
the righteousness from which he had departed. If he 
knows all this, he knows he has done right, he has done 
what both his duty and his interest demand, in receiving 
the gospel as true. In other words, he knows he ought 
to receive it as true. In other words, he knows that it is 
true. To him the Savior has fulfilled the promise made 
c 4 


10 


to all who will do the will of the Father, that they “ shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself.” 

If such a man can be found, we ask, why is he not a 
credible witness to these truths,—truths of which he has 
personal knowledge ? Why may he not testify that he 
knows Christianity to be true ? And what good reason 
can any one give, for rejecting his testimony ? We 
grant that his testimony, if received, cannot place those 
who receive it on the same ground on which the witness 
himself stands, and on which, if the gospel be true, they 
ought to stand. It will not give them a personal ac¬ 
quaintance with its truth; but it will give them the 
same reason for receiving it, which they have for receiv¬ 
ing any statement whatever on the testimony of others. 

But we need not deal in suppositions. We have such 
witnesses in abundance. In many nations, in every age, 
in every condition of life, we find those who testify that 
they do know that the gospel is true. Not only do they 
think it probable ; not only have they examined the his¬ 
toric evidence, which proves the authenticity of its doc¬ 
uments ; not only have they found sufficient testimony 
that Jesus lived, and said and did what the Bible ascribes 
to him; not only have they believed these things 
on the testimony of others, but they have experienced 
the truth of the scriptures in their own persons, and 
when they bear witness to the truth of Christianity, they 
testify that which they know by their own conscious¬ 
ness. “ The true martyrs of Jesus Christ,” says Ed¬ 
wards, “ are not those who have only been strong in 
opinion that the gospel of Christ is true, but those that 
have seen the truth of it; as the very name, martyrs, or 
witnesses, implies. All the saints, who, by their holy 
practice under great trials, declare that faith—can speak 
in the style of witnesses, and not only say that they 
think the gospel is divine, but they say, it is divine, giv¬ 
ing it in as their testimony, because they have seen it to 
be so.” He is here speaking of what is common to all 
Christians, by whom, he tells us, “ the truth of all those 
things which the Scriptures say about experimental re¬ 
ligion is known ; for now they are experienced.” Says 
Wollebius, “ as he who has himself tasted honey knows 
its sweetness much better than he who believes it to be 


li 


sweet on the testimony of another, so he who has tasted 
the sweetness of the holy Scriptures knows them to be 
the word of God, much better than he who believes on the 
testimony of the church;" and a little after, he tells us 
that the latter have only an opinion that the Bible is from 
God, but the former have absolute knowledge of its 
truth. But we need not multiply quotations. Every 
body knows that the gospel is proclaimed in the world, as 
a means of bestowing righteousness and peace on those 
who believe; and, as every body knows,multitudes tes¬ 
tify that they have believed, and found it sufficient for 
this purpose ; that it has given them a peace, a “ rest un¬ 
to their souls," a disgust at sin, and a longing for right¬ 
eousness, such as it promises, and such as sinners need. 
They testify that they know this, just as you know that 
you are a sinner, .and that sin makes you unhappy And 
shall not their testimony be received P 

Why shall it not ? And why shall not this testimony 
of living witnesses, with whom we are personally ac¬ 
quainted, who testify only what they themselves know, 
—why shall it not settle the point, as far as any point 
can be settled by testimony ? 

The witnesses are sufficiently numerous. We state 
this, not because the testimony of one competent witness 
is not sufficient; but because, with many, the number of 
witnesses increase the weight of the testimony. On the 
point before us, all who profess an experimental ac¬ 
quaintance with Christianity are witnesses. They are 
numerous in every man’s neighborhood. t There are now 
on earth, many millions of them. They are of every 
age, sex, rank and condition of life, and belong to every 
country, nearly, under heaven. Tliey bear united testi¬ 
mony, that they know the Bible to 1ft true, by their own 
experience. 

They are sufficiently respectable. This must be ac¬ 
knowledged, whether we consider their intellect, their 
information, their integrity, or the union of all. The 
testimony of so many of them as perhaps every sceptic 
in the land is acquainted with, would be received as con¬ 
clusive by any jury, on any point at issue before them. 
On other subjects, any historian would willingly risk his 
reputation, by recording what they testify as matter of 
fact; any statesman would consider their testimony as 


to important facts, sufficient warrant lor shaping the 
whole course of his policy accordingly ; and any man of 
business would embark ' his capital, as their testimony 
concerning facts should indicate. On qther subjects, 
they would be believed. Shall they not on this ? If not, 
what reason can be given for disbelief? 

Are they interested ? In general, they are not, except 
as every man is interested for the truth. And besides, 
they are, generally, persons whom all who know them 
would believe, even on subjects where they are evident¬ 
ly and deeply interested. 

Is it said, they are fanatics P We must inquire what is 
meant by this charge. If fanaticism means earnest feel¬ 
ing in favor of the truth, perhaps they have good reason 
for their fanaticism, and are none the worse witnesses for 
it. But if it means, that their feelings are excited by er¬ 
ror, the charge of fanaticism is just beggingthe question. 
It is merely saying, we do not believe what they testify, 
because what they testify is not true. 

If the charge of fanaticism means to imply, that this 
subject, on which they profess to have knowledge, is one 
on which no knowledge can be had, we have seen already 
that the accusation is false. Men may have, and ac¬ 
tually do have, the evidence of their own consciousness, 
that they are wicked, that they are wretched, that they 
receive the gospel and are healed by it. 

If it be said that our consciousness is not certain proof, 
we reply that no proof can possibly be more certain. 
Even mathematical demonstration receives all its force 
from the fact, that we are conscious of perceiving its 
truth. And besides; we would ask the objector, if he is 
quite certain that he has any doubts on the subject. If 
he is, then he grants that consciousness may make a man 
quite certain ; for he has no other way of finding out 
whether he doubts or not. If he says no, then we may 
safely put off'answering his doubts, till it becomes certain 
that he has them. In asserting that he doubts, he con¬ 
cedes the point in debate. 

From this argument there is no escape by fair means. 
The thing to be proved is a plain matter of fact; an 
event, of which, if it take place, somebody must be 
conscious, and which, therefore, is a point, suitable to be 
established by testimony. Here are the thousands of un 


13 


impeachable witnesses, all testifying that it has happen¬ 
ed ; that they know it has happenea; that they are con¬ 
scious of its happening. What shall be said against their 
testimony ? That there are some in the world who have 
never experienced the truth of the gospel ? There are 
quite as many who have never seen the satelites of Ju¬ 
piter. Does that disprove their existence ? There are 
thousands who know not that Handel's Messiah is ex¬ 
cellent music. Does that prove that no one knows it ? 
No more does the fact, that some have not attained to a 
personal knowledge of the truth of the gospel, prove that 
all others are ignorant as they. 

The objection, that this testimony is not to be received, 
because some who bear it are dishonest men, while im¬ 
mense numbers of them are known to be honest, deserves 
no serious notice. We only ask that due credit be given 
to those whose honesty is unquestionable. 

Perhaps the true character of infidelity, and the bear¬ 
ing of this argument upon it, may be better seen, by ap¬ 
plying it to another, and so far as this argument is con¬ 
cerned, a perfectly parallel case. 

At some seminary of learning is a student, who ought 
forthwith to commence the study of Euclid’s Elements 
but he has various doubts and objections. He says, “ 1 
doubt whether I shall learn any thing valuable from the 
study of this book. I strongly suspect it is the fabri¬ 
cation of some modern author, and that its doctrines are 
either unimportant or false. I have heard of some dis¬ 
putes about the authorship,—whether Euclid wrote the 
whole, or whether the propositions only are his, and the 
demonstrations the work of another. I perceive, too, 
there are some passages, in which all copies do not agree, 
even in the Greek, and that we have several translations 
into English, no two of which are exactly alike. 1 know 
that, in the business I intend to follow, a knowledge of 
geometry is indispensable; but before trusting myself to 
the guidance of this book, I must have better evidence of 
its worthiness to be trusted. If Elucid knew its doc¬ 
trines to be true, his knowledge might satisfy his own 
mind ; but I cannot, therefore, give up my mind to what¬ 
ever he is reported to have said. ’ 

We might say to such an objector, “ You know that 
all mathematicians, from the days of Euclid to the pres- 


14 


ent, have thought highly of his work, and had full con¬ 
fidence in his doctrines.” “ No,” says the Tyro; “ 1 do 
not know that. I grant, it is true of all whose opinions 1 
have seen ; but, perhaps, there have been some of whom 
I never heard, who have been excellent geometers with¬ 
out receiving his doctrines.” “ You grant, then, that the 
general testimony has been in his favor ?” “ Yes, the tes¬ 

timony of those whose testimony his admirers and follow¬ 
ers have collected—of those who have got their living 
by teaching his doctrines, or practising upon them, or 
whose titles to some part of their lands might be dispu¬ 
ted, if his doctrines were overthrown^ A long succes¬ 
sion of such, I know, are said to have spoken in his fa¬ 
vor. But, even if they have, am I obliged to adopt their 
opinions of him P or rather, the opinions of him, which 
they have expressed ?” “ But here are your Professors 
and Tutors, whom you know and respect. They tell 
you the book is made up of entire truth, and that your 
way to the knowledge you need, lies through its pages.” 
“ Yes, but some of them are old, and formed their opin¬ 
ions in a less enlightened age ; and all of them have a 
professional prejudice in favor of what it is their business 
to teach.” “ Here, then, are your fellow students of the 
classes just before you. Some of them have just conclu¬ 
ded the study, and are applying its principles to other 
departments of knowledge. Others are now in the midst 
of it. They all testify in its favor.” “No, not all of 
them. There are several in each class, who have always 
thought as I do, and neglected the book accordingly.” 
“ And who, therefore, are no judges of its merits.” “ ] 
suppose I must grant that; but some, who speak well 
of it, show no attachment to it, and I very much doubt 
their sincerity, or rather, I have evidence that their prais¬ 
es are hypocritical.” “ But many, you must allow, re¬ 
ally believe what they say in its favor.” “ Yes, I must 
allow that they believe it. But they may mistake.” 
“ But what is their testimony ? that they are of the 
opinion that the doctrines of Euclid are true, or that they 
know them to be true ?” “ Certainly, they profess to 
know them to be true.” “ And on any other point, you 
would believe their testimony. Why should you re¬ 
ject it now, when they testify that they know Euclid to 


15 


be true ?” “ Why, their very pretense, that they know 
certainly, and beyond the possibility of mistake, shows 
that they are enthusiastic, fanatical, and, on this subject, 
unworthy of credit.” “ Are you quite certain that it 
shows this ? Do you know that you do not mistake in 
this matter?” “I think I do not.” “Are you quite 
sure that you think so ? Is it absolutely certain , that you 
doubt their testimony in the least ? Do you know you 
are not fully convinced by it, that Euclid is worthy of 
your attention?” “Suppose I say, yes.” “Then you 
must grant that absolute knowledge is possible. If you 
can certainly know one thing, they may, with equal cer¬ 
tainty, know another. Is not their reputation for vera¬ 
city as good as yours?” “ I grant it is.” “ Have you 
not, then, as much reason to believe that they knoio Eu¬ 
clid to be true, as I have to believe that you doubt it?” 
“ I acknowledge I have, if that which they testify were 
capable of being certainly known.” “ And who is the 
best judge of that—they, who have studied it, or you, 
who have not?” “They, I confess.” “And they tes¬ 
tify, both that it is capable of being known, and that they 
know it.” “The testimony, I confess, is very strong; 
but I have looked into Euclid several times, without ev¬ 
er gaining any of this certain knowledge, and the same 
is true of several others.” “ Euclid, you know, has ar¬ 
ranged his propositions in a certain order, in which he 
intended they should be studied. Have you ever appli¬ 
ed yourself to the work, in the way which he intended 
those should do, who would obtain the knowledge it con¬ 
tains ?” “ I cannot say that I have.” “ Then you could 
not reasonably expect to know for yourself the truth of 
his doctrines. In order for that, you must use the book 
as its author intended it to be used, and as all have used 
it, who have teen successful in their use of it. The tes¬ 
timony of which we have been speaking is sufficient to 
warrant you in doing this, with the confident hope of 
success.” 

We ask, must not a candid mind regard this reasoning 
as satisfactory ? and can this student, with any proprie¬ 
ty, profess to retain his doubts and act upon them ? And 
though, in some respects, not essential to the argument, 
the cases are not parallel, can he who, with the testimo¬ 
ny of all the pious before him, continues to neglect the 


16 


Bible as a book of doubtful character, lay any better claim 
to be thought a fair and consistent reasoner? In both 
cases, the doubter is one who, by his own aceount, has 
no right to expect to know for himself, whether the book 
is true or not. And in both cases, he has testimony 
which ought to satisfy him, that others have found it and 
do know it to be true and worthy of his attention, and 
that by attending to it as he ought, he may at length 
know its truth for himself. 

Why, then, we ask—and whoever feels any inclina¬ 
tion to retain his infidelity is bound to give a satisfactory 
answer—why do any receive Euclid and reject the Bi¬ 
ble ? It is not because the evidence in favor of Euclid 
is in itself any more conclusive; for such, we have seen, 
is not the fact. Euclid is taken up and read with full 
confidence that it will be found a safe and sufficient 
guide; but, though the Bible is recommended by evi¬ 
dence of the same kind, from sources at least equally 
respectable, and in much greater abundance, the same 
persons, in many instances, refuse to give it the same 
confidence. The different treatment of the two books 
does not arise from any difference in the evidence by 
which both are proved to be trustworthy. We can as¬ 
sign a reason for it, which, beyond doubt, exists, and is 
sufficient to account for the phenomenon. It is this. A 
man may admit that Euclid is true, and yet be at liberty 
to do as he pleases about studying it; or he may acquaint 
himself with its ti-uths, and do as he shall see fit about 
practising upon them; or he may reduce them to prac¬ 
tice, without denying himself any sinful indulgence that 
he loves. But not so with the Bible. Such are the sub¬ 
jects of which it treats, that the man who admits its 
truth feels bound to acquaint himself with its contents ; 
and he who learns what its requirements are, feels bound 
to obey them ; and obedience to them consists in absti¬ 
nence from the pleasures of sin, and in the performance 
of duties which those who love such pleasures dread. 
In Christian lands, every one knows this,—knows that 
if the truth of the Bible is admitted, there is left no rest¬ 
ing place for his conscience, short of thorough obedi¬ 
ence to its teachings. Here is the temptation to call it 
false or doubtful. The grossest sensualist, even, may 
admit Euclid, and continue as undisturbed as ever in his 


17 


sensuality; but if he once admits the Bible, he must 
abandon his revels, or bear the continual goadings of 
conscience. He cannot consent to do either, for he loves 
the one and is afraid of the other; and for this reason, and 
for this only, he endeavors to escape from both by reso¬ 
lutely adhering, in despite of evidence, to the creed 
which promises him peace in sin—to infidelity. He is 
an infidel, because he is a bad man, and is unwilling to 
become better. 

But on this point we need not enlarge. The volume 
before us does itample justice, and we will no longer de¬ 
tain the reader from its perusal. 





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SERMONS 


ON 


INFIDELITY. 


SERMON I. 


Hebrews, nr. 12. 

“ Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an 
evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living 

The “ unbelief” spoken of in the text refers 
to the religion of Christ. And the Hebrew con¬ 
verts were warned against it by the Apostle, on 
the ground that, if they cherished such unbelief, 
they would apostatize not merely from Jesus of 
Nazareth, but from God himself. God was as 
much the author of Christianity as he was of Ju¬ 
daism. To each of them he had assigned its 
place in the great scheme of his moral administra¬ 
tion. And he had given abundant reason for em¬ 
bracing the former as a system, which, besides 
being true and important in itself, was intended 
to supersede and abrogate the latter. So that if 

D 


2 


SERMON I . 


they rejected it, and went back to their ancient 
faith, they might be said with perfect propriety to 
abandon both of them, as to all enlightened and 
practical allegiance to Him from whom both of 
them had proceeded, and who still lived, equally 
just and powerful, to punish their desertion of the 
new dispensation, as he punished those who des¬ 
pised the promises, and trampled on the authori¬ 
ty of the old. 

The principle which is here laid down extends 
farther than the case of the Hebrew converts. It 
applies with equal force to the case of all those 
who renounce Christianity, whatever be the reli¬ 
gious creed which they profess to adopt or to re¬ 
tain. There is a natural connexion between the 
disbelief of Christianity in particular, and the dis¬ 
belief of religion in general. The one leads di¬ 
rectly to the other. And therefore to every one 
who may feel himself tempted to abandon the 
Gospel as a “ cunningly devised fable,” or to re¬ 
gard it as unworthy of any great sacrifice, or of 
any strong attachment, I would with all earnest¬ 
ness address the admonition of the text, and en¬ 
force it by the consideration, that your unbelief 
as to the doctrine of Christ will be followed by 
your departure “from the living God.” 

The position we have laid down may give of¬ 
fence to those who go no farther than a rejection 
of the Gospel, as an imputation against their un¬ 
derstanding or their integrity. It may be stig¬ 
matized by free-thinkers, as an expression of big¬ 
otry and intolerance. And it may be thought un- 
candid by such as would give credit to the bitter¬ 
est enemies of revelation, for every degree of faith 


SERMON I . 


3 


which they may pretend to cherish. It is far, 
however, from being gratuitous or unsupported. 
And, as it appears to us to be of great importance, 
we shall state the grounds upon which we appre¬ 
hend it to be immoveably established. 

I. In th e first place, we appeal to the history of 
Deism, as it is to be found in the writings of those 
who have embraced and supported that system. 

It is worthy of remark, that the term Deist is 
not of an older date than the middle of the six¬ 
teenth century. The class of unbelievers who 
now assume this appellation, were till then denom¬ 
inated Atheists. And it was to avoid the odium 
attached to that name, that they arrogated the less 
forbidding and less alarming title by which they 
afterwards chose to be distinguished. Nor is 
there the least reason to believe that, when they 
were accused of being Atheists, the accusation 
had its origin either in mistake or in calumny ; or 
that, when they substituted a milder term, they had 
any other view than that of bettering their reputa¬ 
tion, by pretending to hold principles of which 
they were known to be destitute. On the contra¬ 
ry, it is a recorded and undeniable fact, that 
though they put on this mask, and deceived such 
as contemplated them at a distance—though they 
professed to admit the existence of a God, and 
though some of them professed to go a step far¬ 
ther, and admit the immortality of the soul—they 
were, nevertheless, in the habit of laughing at all 
religion as the dream of folly, or of reprobating it 
as the offspring of fraud and priestcraft.* 

* See the article Viret, in Bayle’s Dictionary. 


4 


SERMON I . 


That the same thing prevailed among the unbe¬ 
lievers of a later period, we learn from the testi¬ 
mony of one of their own number, given in the 
most explicit manner, and in the most interesting 
circumstances. This person* came to be convin¬ 
ced of his errors; and was anxious to do good to 
those from whom he had found it necessary to sep¬ 
arate himself. With that view, he took the trouble 
of composing a manual for their use, the chief part 
of which was occupied in defending the great prin¬ 
ciples of natural theology, because he found them 
inimical to these, or doubtful of them, and because 
this aversion constituted one of the most formida¬ 
ble barriers to their reception of the Christian faith. 

Numerous examples of the same thing are to be 
found in the writings of those who have held the 
most conspicuous place in the ranks of infidelity. 
We observe them not only amid their occasional 
professions of respect for Christianity, throwing 
out against it the language of ridicule and con¬ 
demnation, but even in their avowed attempts to 
build up a theory of pure Deism, intentionally leav¬ 
ing out, or speaking lightly and contemptuously of 
some of the most essential principles of all religion. 
Whether they were allowed to fall into these ab¬ 
errations by the inherent inconsistency of their 
system, or whether they were forced into them by 
the natural course and current of their argument, 
it is of no consequence to ascertain. The fact, 
with which alone we have to do at present, is suf¬ 
ficiently certain, that they have not scrupled to cast 
away as neither useful nor true, the doctrines of 

* Mr. Gildon, author of “The Deist’s Manual,” which was pub- 
lished about the beginning of the 18th century. 


SERMON I . 


5 


God’s holiness and justice, of a superintending 
providence, and of a future retribution. 

Nay, it is to be particularly noticed, that those 
individuals among them who have brought most 
intellect into the controversy, who seem to have 
possessed the finest talents for asserting the suf¬ 
ficiency and proving the tenets of natural religion, 
and whose opinions have been most frequently and 
submissively appealed to by the enemies of Chris¬ 
tianity, are the very men by whom Christianity and 
natural religion have been treated with an almost 
equal degree of indifference or dislike. If natu¬ 
ral religion has appeared to be the object of their 
respect, and has experienced their support, it was 
only that, by alleging its sufficiency, they might 
give the deadlier blow to the faith of Jesus. But 
there is not a truth in the one or in the other which 
they have not exposed to ridicule by their profane 
wit, or brought into question by their ingenious 
speculations. And though they have not had the 
hardihood to avow themselves the supporters of 
Atheism, yet it is impossible to peruse what they 
have published without perceiving, that to Atheism 
we must come at last, if we acquiesce ifi their po¬ 
sitions, and follow out the course which they have 
pursued. 

We would not impute to any set of men one 
dogma which they have plainly and honestly disa¬ 
vowed. We are too much aware of the weakness 
of the human understanding, and of the errors and 
inadvertencies to which it is liable in the breasts of 
the ablest and the best, to be guilty of such a want 
of candor and forbearance. And we should hold 
it to be unjust, to make one of thepn accountable 
d 2 


6 


SERMON 1 . 


for the statements of another, which he has neither 
sanctioned nor acknowledged. All that we are 
desirous to establish is, that infidels have not been 
contented with merely laying aside Christianity as 
unnecessary for the condition of man, or as unsup¬ 
ported by satisfactory evidence ; but that they have 
been equally careless of retaining certain tenets, 
which every one must regard as of vital importance 
to the harmony and the utility of the least compli¬ 
cated form of religion. And of this, their declared 
sentiments furnish us with the most ample and un¬ 
equivocal demonstrations. And surely the fact is 
of the greater weight, when we recollect that it is 
not peculiar to those authors whose authority has 
been held in little respect, and has possessed little 
influence over the opinions of others, but that it 
marks the writings of individuals who yield to none 
of their brethren in professions of sincerity, in lit¬ 
erary and philosophical acquirements, or in the es¬ 
timation in which they have been held by the abet¬ 
tors of infidelity, and by the world at large. 

It is no very difficult matter, indeed, to get up a 
theory of pure Deism. Such a thing has not only 
been attempted, but accomplished. But by whom 
has it been accomplished ? Not by infidels, but by 
believers in Christianity. And these have suc¬ 
ceeded just because they were believers in Chris¬ 
tianity. They have flattered themselves, perhaps, 
that they were following the mere light of nature, 
when in truth they were walking in the broad day¬ 
light of Revelation. They had all the materials 
for their scheme already laid to their hand. They 
had nothing to do but to separate them from what 
is peculiar to the Gospel as a message of pardon 


SERMON I . 


7 


—and to arrange them into something like sys¬ 
tematic order—and to annex to them some portion 
of argument and illustration. In fact, they have 
been careful never to travel out of the record. 
They have been restrained by their previous and 
settled belief in the authenticity of the Bible. Or 
they have been afraid of yielding to the scepti¬ 
cism which a momentary and formal departure from 
the solid ground of Revelation was beginning to 
engender in their minds. And accordingly they 
have put down nothing which was not already put 
down for them by the pen of inspiration ; nor have 
they employed any reasonings but those which, 
however inconclusive as to the matter in hand, may 
at least be quite safe in their remoter bearings on 
other departments of the system. But where is 
such a scheme to be discovered in the productions 
of those who have rejected Christianity ? Have 
they ever pretended to put together a platform of 
natural religion, which is repugnant in none of its 
parts to the dictates of revelation on that particu¬ 
lar branch* of theology ? Or, have they ever pre¬ 
tended to maintain it by arguments, whose legiti¬ 
mate effect is not hostile to some of their own con¬ 
clusions ? Yes: they have pretended such things, 
and they have tried them—but without success. 
In all those systems which have been framed by 
such of the Deists as not only denied the truth of 
Christianity, but scorned to receive any aid from 
it, we observe some of the fundamental principles 
of religion deliberately and decidedly rejected, or 
abandoned to doubts as fatal to their practical ef¬ 
ficacy as an absolute denial of them. 


8 


SERMON I . 


The history of Deism, indeed, presents us with 
a case which may seem to form an exception to our 
general statement on this part of the subject. One 
of its votaries* did contrive to give a view of the 
religion of nature, which is wonderfully consistent 
and free from gross imperfections. But then, it is 
evidently borrowed from the sacred Scriptures, with 
which he was acquainted, and to which he expressly 
refers as a source of information. So far as he 
endeavors to support it by reasoning, he himself 
acknowledges that his induction of particulars is 
incomplete; and it is obviously so, to a much greater 
extent than he was willing to allow. And, what 
is of still higher consequence, comparatively ex¬ 
cellent and perfect as his scheme was, it has scarce¬ 
ly procured him a follower among the multitude of 
Infidels that succeeded him. Most of them, in¬ 
deed, have set it aside, as abridging that latitude 
of free-thinking by which they wish to be distin¬ 
guished ; and instead of supplying its deficiencies 
and correcting its mistakes, which the pretensions 
of Deism would have led us to expect, 'they have 
gradually declined from the high ground on which 
it had placed them, and sunk into the lowest depths 
of scepticism and infidelity. 

There is nothing, perhaps, which is more deserv¬ 
ing of notice in the conduct of the deistical unbe¬ 
lievers, or which can more forcibly strike a serious 
reader, or which contributes more to the result we 
are aiming at, than the perfect ease, and not sel¬ 
dom the self-complacent levity, with which they lay 

*Lord Herbert. See hia Treatises “De Religione Gentilium” and 
“De Religione Laici.” 


SERMON I . 


9 


down their principles and speak of their conclu¬ 
sions. They expunge an attribute from the char¬ 
acter of God; or they contend against the belief 
of his government of the world; or they blot out 
immortality from the record of human hopes; or 
they reduce it, from being the great scene of moral 
retribution, to a mere picture of the fancy—they 
do this, not only without one sigh of regret, and 
without one feeling of compunction, but with as 
much coolness as they would rectify an error in 
the most common transactions of life. They talk, 
indeed, of their reverence for sacred truth; but 
they can put forth the hand of no ordinary daring 
upon the mighty perfections of Jehovah, and the 
eternal prospects of our race, with less ceremony 
than they would employ in settling the personal 
merits of an earthly friend, or in deciding upon the 
commercial enterprizes of the humblest citizen. 
They seem even anxious to shew, by some deci¬ 
sive proof of independence, that they are not un¬ 
der the trammels of the bible, and have, therefore, 
no hesitation in denouncing as superstition and 
falsehood, certain of the positions which it con¬ 
tains, on that more limited scheme of theology 
within which they profess to confine their specu¬ 
lations and their faith. And, in this manner, while 
they have exhibited the fact, in its most indispu¬ 
table form, that unbelievers have never afforded us 
a full and consistent view of the religion of na¬ 
ture, but have left out one or other of its funda¬ 
mental doctrines ; they have, at the same time, 
betrayed a spirit which is ready to regard them 
all with indifference or contempt, which would be 
more in its natural element, the more it receded 


10 


SERMON I. 


from any connexion, or from any contact what¬ 
ever with the system of Christianity, and to whose 
wanderings, therefore, we feel it impossible to 
assign any limits on this side of speculative or 
practical atheism. 

II. In support of our proposition, we appeal, 
in the second place, to the prevailing infidelity of 
the day, of whose character and features every one 
must judge, so far as it has come within his know¬ 
ledge, or presented itself to his observation. 

We have spoken of those unbelievers who have 
published their sentiments ; and if, when they 
were deliberately committing themselves to the 
world, and, in a permanent record of their opin¬ 
ions, giving over their reputation to the judgement 
of their contemporaries, and handing it down for 
the decision of posterity—if, with this responsi¬ 
bility hanging over them, they departed so far 
from the living God, and wandered in the paths of 
general irreligion, to what lengths may not we ex¬ 
pect the many to go, who have no such restraints 
upon them, either in forming or in declaring their 
sentiments ? What can we expect, but that hav¬ 
ing a greater latitude for their unbelief, their un¬ 
belief will take a wider range—that they will 
speak more freely than they would have written— 
and that, in the tone and complexion of their 
character, they shall give sufficiently intelligible 
tokens of their having a still more reckless infi¬ 
delity in their minds than they have courage to 
avow ? And this is just the fact which is realized 
in every corner of the unbelieving world. Infi¬ 
delity puts on a great variety of aspects ; it dres- 


SERMON I . 


11 


ses itself in a thousand garbs; its appearance is 
diversified by colors and shades as numerous al¬ 
most as the individuals by whom it is exhibited. 
But there is one leading feature which it never 
loses, and which pervades the whole of those to 
whom it attaches, and shews them to be members 
of the same family—a feature of determined hos¬ 
tility, or of settled contempt, for what is sacred— 
not merely for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but 
for all that relates to the belief and the service 
of the living God. 

We have heard, indeed, of men who affected 
to hold fast by the tenets of natural religion, 
while they repudiated those of divine Revelation ; 
but we have nevej been so fortunate as to see and 
converse with one of them whose creed, select, 
and circumscribed, and palatable as he had made 
it, seemed to have any serious footing in his mind, 
or any practical influence on his life ; who could 
restrain his sneer at piety the most untinctured 
with enthusiasm; or who could check his specu¬ 
lations, however hostile to the system he had af¬ 
fected to embrace; or who worshipped the God 
in whose existence and attributes he acknowledg¬ 
ed his belief; or who acted with a view to that 
immortality, for which he allowed that the soul of 
man is destined. 

It is true, the votaries of infidelity are often pla¬ 
ced in circumstances which constrain them to hold 
such language, and maintain such a deportment, 
as by itself might indicate the presence of Chris¬ 
tian principle. They are frequently not at liber¬ 
ty to give that full play and that unreserved pub¬ 
licity to their unbelief, in which, however, it is 


12 


SERMON I. 


naturally disposed to indulge, and in which it 
would undoubtedly manifest itself, were it free to 
operate at large. And you may not, therefore, at 
particular times, and in particular situations, per¬ 
ceive any marked distinction between them and 
the devoted followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They 
may find it prejudicial to their worldly interests, 
or to their good name, to make an open avowal of 
any approach, however distant, to the confines of 
atheism. They may have a family, and in the 
tenderness of parental affection, and with the con¬ 
viction that what they regard as altogether false 
may contribute as much to the virtue and happi¬ 
ness of their children as if it were altogether true, 
they may shrink from any declaration of infidelity 
within the domestic circle. They may acknowl¬ 
edge in the season of their own distress, or they 
may suggest, amid the distresses of their friends, 
those considerations to which the mind, when 
softened or when agitated by affliction, naturally 
clings, even though it has no habitual conviction 
of their truth, and no proper title to the consola¬ 
tion which they afford. They may be driven by 
bodily anguish, or by impending danger, to utter the 
language of a piety which till that moment was a 
stranger even to their lips, just as the mariner has 
been known, amidst the perils and horrors of a 
shipwreck, to cry for mercy from that God whose 
existence he had never before confessed, but by 
his profaneness and his blasphemies. Or they 
may even be strongly and insensibly induced to 
accommodate themselves to prevailing customs, 
and to pay an outward homage to the faith of the 
New Testament, by occasionally attending its in- 


SERMON I. 


13 


stitutions, though they are all the while regard¬ 
ing it as a mere harmless fable, if not as a con¬ 
temptible or a pernicious superstition. 

But look at them, when placed in those circum¬ 
stances which put no such restraints upon what 
they may may say and do as the enemies of Chris¬ 
tianity ; observe them when the pride of intellect 
tempts them to display their learning or their in¬ 
genuity in contending against the vulgar faith— 
or when tl^ey have a passion to gratify, which 
needs the aid of some principle to vindicate its 
indulgence—or when they have nothing to fear 
from giving utterance to what they think and 
feel—or when they happen to be associated with 
those among whom the quality of free-thinking 
prevails; observe them as to the language which 
they employ, and the practice which they main¬ 
tain with respect to religion, in the ordinary 
course and tenor of their lives ; and then say 
what positive proofs they give you of the reality or 
of the efficacy of those religious principles which 
they profess to have retained, after putting away 
from them the doctrine of Christ. Say, if instead 
of affording you positive proofs of such remanent 
and distinctive piety, they are not displaying daily 
and inveterate symptoms that God, and Provi¬ 
dence, and immortality, are not in all their 
thoughts. Say, if you have not seen many a mel¬ 
ancholy demonstration of that general irreligion, 
which we have ascribed to them as the conse¬ 
quence of their throwing off the dominion of the 
Gospel. And say if you have not been able to 
trace this down through all the gradations of infi¬ 
delity, from the’ speculative philosopher, who has 

E 


SERMON I . 


14 

decided that there is no Saviour, till you come to 
the fool, who says, in the weakness and the wick¬ 
edness of his heart, that there is no God. 

In reply to this, we shall probably hear it al¬ 
leged, that there may be religious principle and 
religious feeling where there is no religious dis¬ 
play—that those are not always the most devout, 
whose devotion makes the most noise, and attracts 
the most notice—that the theology of nature being 
much simpler than the theology of revelation, it is 
not capable of being evidenced by such marked 
and decisive symptoms. 

But we are not to be satisfied with such allega¬ 
tions. When those who reject Christianity take 
refuge in the doctrine and habits of Quietism, and 
pretend to the exercises of inward contemplative 
piety, in order to save themselves from the charge 
of utter infidelity, we do not think it necessary to 
follow them into their retreat with any thing in 
the shape of argument, or to disturb their repose 
even by a single observation. If they mean to 
defend their cause by referring to the sanctimoni¬ 
ousness and hypocrisy of mere nominal Christians, 
we take away their defence by giving up to them 
these traitors as their own allies, and acknowledg¬ 
ing that whenever we shall build upon such a hol¬ 
low foundation, they are at liberty to overthrow 
our superstructure, and to erect their system upon 
its ruins. And, so far as the general principle of 
their allegation is concerned, we maintain that it 
has no force nor weight in it. For if the doc¬ 
trines of natural religion be cordially admitted, 
they cannot but be accompanied with some exter¬ 
nal tokens of their reception and‘their influence. 


SERMON I . 


15 


They may be prevented, by various circumstances, 
from producing all the effect which might be 
wished or expected; but there will be such mani¬ 
festations of them, as to leave no room for doubt¬ 
ing that they are the objects of belief. In the 
conversation and the conduct, there will be a plain 
recognition of God’s existence, and of his perfec¬ 
tions, and of his government of the world, and of 
a future state of retribution. And all tliis we shall 
confidently expect to find in the case of those, 
who deliberately separate between the religion of 
nature and the religion of Jesus; who have dis¬ 
carded the latter as a fable, and who have adher¬ 
ed to the former as a system of doctrine purified 
from error and superstition, and arrayed in all the 
majesty of unquestionable and eternal truth. But 
can it be pretended that such things are realized 
in the character of infidels ; or that they are real¬ 
ized to such an extent as can disprove our posi¬ 
tion ? Where shall we find among infidels any 
thing approaching to a demonstration, or even 
amounting to a presumption, that their minds have 
kept fast hold of the general principles of religion, 
after having thrown off the authority of the Gos¬ 
pel ? Do not we hear in the language, and do 
not we see in the conduct, of the uneducated class of 
unbelievers, the most shocking evidences of a total 
disregard of every thing of a sacred kind ? Among 
their more learned and philosophical brethren, al¬ 
though there may be fewer practical proofs of the 
fact, can we fail to discern, along with their avow¬ 
ed rejection of Christianity, numerous and une¬ 
quivocal traces of indiscriminate, universal, reck¬ 
less scepticism ? And as to those of the fraterni- 


16 


SERMON I . 


ty who pretend not to the intellectual attainments 
of the latter, and are superior to the former in 
rank, and circumstances, and influence, while they 
talk of revelation with almost undisguised contempt, 
do not they at the same time live without any ac¬ 
tual acknowledgment of God as their Governor 
and Judge ; or, if they make any such profession, 
is it not obviously and Undeniably a mere accom¬ 
modation to surrounding prejudice, as they would 
term it; or a mere employment of that which they 
neither love nor believe themselves, as a political 
engine for the management and subjugation of 
others ? 

When, in answer to the statements we have 
just made, it is charged upon us that we advance 
them without proof, we can only cast ourselves 
upon the judgment of every man of candor and 
observation. We pretend not in a case of this 
kind, to adduce such evidence as would be requir¬ 
ed in a court of law. We cannot specify all the 
individual instances which have led us to our gen¬ 
eral conclusion. Nor do we ask any one’s assent 
to it, except in so far as the facts to which we 
have referred have come within the sphere of his 
own knowledge. If you say that the representa¬ 
tion we have given does not accord with what you 
have actually noticed, we do not insist upon your 
being influenced by it, and we do not urge it up¬ 
on you as any ground of argument at all. But we 
request that you would look around you on the 
unbelieving world, and examine whether its aspect 
corresponds with the allegation we have brought 
forward. And if you find such a correspondence 
existing, we then expect that you will admit the 


SERMON I . 


17 


point as sufficiently substantiated, and that you 
will allow it its due weight on your decision of 
the subject we are discussing. 

And what is the precise bearing of the fact on 
the position we are endeavoring to establish? We 
do not say that it puts the truth of that position 
beyond controversy ; but we certainly have a right 
to say, that, taken in connexion with what is pre¬ 
sented to us by the history of Deism, it affords a 
strong presumptive proof of our doctrine. Since 
those who have rejected Christianity have almost 
invariably fallen into a disregard of all religion, it 
is unquestionably fair and rational to infer, that 
the one species of infidelity naturally leads to the 
other. If this be not granted, we are at least en¬ 
titled to call for a satisfactory explanation of the 
phenomenon; and, till that explanation be given, 
we cannot help regarding and employing it as the 
foundation of an argument altogether legitimate, 
and not easily resisted, and beseeching those on 
whose belief the religion of Christ has begun to 
lose its hold, to consider well before they proceed 
farther, what is the probable termination of that 
course on which they have entered. They may 
not be convinced by this that the Gospel is true; 
but it may serve to arrest them, till their under¬ 
standing has taken a more comprehensive, a more 
unprejudiced, and a more accurate view of the ev¬ 
idences by which that system is supported, and to 
make them look with a reasonable degree of jeal¬ 
ousy and suspicion on those attempts which, limit¬ 
ed as their apparent object may be, are calculated 
in their ultimate tendency to endanger all the faith 
and all the hope of those upon whom they are made. 
e 2 


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SAME TEXT. 


III. We now appeal, in the third plape, to the 
objections which have been urged against Christi¬ 
anity, and upon which Deists have mainly rested 
their rejection of it. 

These, when properly estimated, and impartial¬ 
ly applied, will be found to bear as strongly against 
natural , as they do against revealed religion. And, 
consequently, those who are influenced by them, 
and would act with any degree of consistency, 
must go the length of renouncing both. 

Unbelievers have objected to Christianity, on 
the ground of its being mysterious. They refuse 
it their assent and their acceptance, because it 
contains what they cannot comprehend. But if 
that be a good reason for rejecting revelation, it 
is an equally good reason for rejecting all religion. 
Is there nothing mysterious in the idea of a Being 
who was the cause and beginning of all things, 


20 


SERMON II. 


and yet was himself without beginning or cause ? 
Is there nothing mysterious in the idea of a Be¬ 
ing, who is not extended as matter is, and yet is 
every where present in all the perfection of his 
nature ? Is there nothing mysterious in the idea 
of that Being, as infinitely holy and infinitely pow¬ 
erful, and yet allowing sin to enter and to prevail 
in the world which he governs ? In these and 
many other respects, the religion of nature con¬ 
tains the most perplexing and unintelligible mys¬ 
teries, and is, therefore, just as fit to be renounced 
as revelation. Nor should we stop here: we 
should, agreeably to the same maxim, discredit the 
most obvious facts in the natural world; for there 
is not a single object on which we can fix our eyes, 
that does not contain in it some inexplicable mys¬ 
tery. We see and know these objects to exist, 
and we perceive their properties, and can perhaps 
trace their composition; but the mode of their ex¬ 
istence is a secret, which to our finite minds is, 
and will probably remain forever, utterly inscru¬ 
table. 

Another objection which infidels bring against 
the Christian faith, is its want of universality. 
Though it has existed, they say, for seventeen or 
eighteen centuries, it is still confined to a small 
portion of mankind; whereas, had it been from 
God, it would have been communicated to all. 
But if this objection have any force at all, it must 
go much farther than Revelation. It may bring 
suspicion upon Christianity, but it must wholly 
overturn and annihilate the pretensions of the re¬ 
ligion of nature. For Christianity has evidently a 
footing in the world—it has made a certain pro- 


SERMON II. 


21 


gress—and it is daily advancing towards univer¬ 
sality. But where is the religion of nature to be 
found, except in the alleged capacity of man to 
discover it, or in the mouths or writings of those 
who borrow its doctrines from holy writ ? Thou¬ 
sands of years have passed away, and still there is 
not a tribe upon the face of the earth where it 
can be said to prevail in its genuine form. Nay, 
among the heathen, instead of there being any 
approach to it, there seems to be a gradual de¬ 
parture from every thing that is pure and rational 
in its theory. And had it not been for the doc¬ 
trine of Jesus of Nazareth, there is every reason 
to believe that the religion of nature would have 
been supplanted and superseded by the grossest 
and most unlimited paganism. 

Christianity has also been objected to by infi¬ 
dels, on account of the controverted nature and 
consequent uncertainty of its articles. But sure¬ 
ly it requires no depth of sagacity to perceive, 
that this objection may, in the hands even of a 
feeble adversary, be employed to induce universal 
scepticism; and that, indeed, if it is good for any 
thing, it must carry us on to Atheism itself,—for 
what tenet of the Deist’s creed has not been pos¬ 
itively denied, and which of his reasonings may 
not be ingeniously disputed ? On this point it is 
a most instructive fact, that though he who first 
reduced the objection to shape, and gave it prom¬ 
inence in the opposition made to the Gospel, 
brought forward a system of natural religion, which 
he deemed so unexceptionable as to secure the ac¬ 
ceptance and belief of every man, yet its most im¬ 
portant truths have been doubted by some, and de- 


22 


SERMON II. 


nied by others—doubted and denied even by those, 
who have, notwithstanding, taken up his objection 
as a good one, and maintained it as sufficient to 
justify the rejection of Christianity. 

But the great objection, on the strength of 
which unbelievers chiefly found their opposition to 
Christianity, is, that it implies what is miraculous . 
And so it does: that is a distinguishing property 
of Revelation; and it is upon that ground, and 
upon no other, that its truth is established. 

But what then? A miracle in itself is nothing 
but a fact. It is one of the operations of provi¬ 
dence. It holds its place among the various and 
multiplied events which present themselves to the 
attention of mankind. And, in this point of view, 
it is just as capable of proof as any other fact, op¬ 
eration, or event, which happens in the world. 
It comes under the cognizance of those very sens¬ 
es, which witness the existence and the move¬ 
ments of all the different objects in creation ; and 
any one who is competent to convey to us his im¬ 
pression of the one, must be equally competent to 
convey to us his impression of the other. He 
simply tells what he saw and heard in both cases. 
For example, he saw a man die, and he saw the 
same man rise from the dead. Between these 
two things, so far as mere physical fact is concern¬ 
ed, there is not the shadow of difference. And 
there can be no difference in the possibility of the 
witness testifying what he observed in the latter 
instance, as well as what he observed in the for¬ 
mer. But on this principle, revealed religion and 
natural religion are on precisely the same footing. 
Those who saw the miracles of Christ, inferred 


SERMON I I . 


23 


from these the truth of his mission and of his doc¬ 
trine. And upon what other or more favorable 
ground do they stand, who see the ordinary phe¬ 
nomena of nature and the ordinary course of prov¬ 
idence, and from these infer the tenets of Theism ? 
Each of them embraces an inductive argument. 
Certain ascertained facts are combined with cer¬ 
tain acknowledged first principles ; and these con¬ 
duct the understanding to certain conclusions, in 
which it rests as sound and irresistible. 

The cases, indeed, may be thought dissimilar, 
in so far as the Christian miracles are not person¬ 
ally witnessed by the great majority of those, 
who yet believe the system which they are in¬ 
tended to support. But the dissimilarity is more 
seeming than real. For, 

1. In the first place, natural religion itself must 
be proved in a great measure by facts, which we 
receive upon the evidence of testimony. It re¬ 
quires an extensive and minute acquaintance with 
the works and the ways of God, to enable us to 
proceed much farther in our conclusion than his 
mere existence and power. And this acquaint¬ 
ance is to be obtained from the researches, and 
observations, and experiments of others, a thou¬ 
sand times more than from any exertions of our 
own. For all the illustrations which are afforded 
us of the character and government of the Su¬ 
preme Being, by the discoveries of physical sci¬ 
ence and the moral and political history of our 
species, we must be indebted, in no inconsidera¬ 
ble degree, to the very same channels which have 
conveyed to us an account of the supernatural 


24 


SERMON II. 


events upon which we repose our faith in the re¬ 
ligion of Jesus. 

2. In the second place, it is not strictly true 
that the Christian miracles are all set before us 
by testimony. We maintain, that some of them 
are as much the objects of immediate observation 
as any appearance whatever in the natural world. 
The internal evidence of the Gospel, like every 
other branch of its evidence, is miraculous. The 
Gospel is a work above the power of man; it 
bears upon its face, and carries in its bosom, the 
impress of divinity ; we see it with our own eyes, 
and seeing , we believe. There is also the experi¬ 
mental evidence. We feel in our hearts the ope¬ 
ration of the Gospel, producing effects to which 
the power of man is inadequate, and which, from 
their nature and extent, we are necessitated to 
trace to a divine source. And similar effects, ex¬ 
hibited in the character of thousands around us, 
who have been brought from darkness to light, are 
visible and striking manifestations of the same 
heavenly influence by which we ourselves have 
been transformed. Under this head, we may also 
include the present state of the Jews, which some 
Deists have admitted to be at least a most won¬ 
derful and inexplicable phenomenon in the history 
of the world. The predictions respecting them 
are contained in the Gospel record; and the ful¬ 
filment of these predictions is to this day exhibit¬ 
ed before us in the character and condition of that 
singular people—thus not simply proving to us, 
that he who foretold these things was a true 
prophet, but also in connexion with the prophesy, 
actually presenting to our view a miraculous in¬ 
terposition of the power and agency of God. It 


SERMON II. 


25 


is essential indeed to the completeness of the 
miracle, that we go back to the New Testament 
annals ; but the substance of the miracle—that in 
which its force properly consists, is an existing 
fact, seen and known of all men. 

3. And then in the third place, while natural 
religion is supported in a certain degree by the 
evidence of testimony, and revealed religion, in a 
certain degree, by the evidence of sense and con¬ 
sciousness, it is to be remarked, that, after all, 
our belief in either of them is the result of 
a process of reasoning. The facts with which 
we are furnished, whether it be by testimony or 
by sensation, are but the grounds of argument— 
the mere materials with which we are to work— 
the means by whose aid we arrive at our con¬ 
clusions. Now it is a principle of our intellec¬ 
tual constitution, to give credit to human testi¬ 
mony, as well as to give credit to the informa¬ 
tion of our senses. And though, when these two 
instruments of knowledge come into competition, 
we cannot help giving the preference in point of 
certainty to the latter, yet there is nothing either 
uncommon or irrational in being satisfied of the 
validity of both, and in having our judgement deter¬ 
mined as much by the one as by the other. It 
cannot be denied, that there is often as little 
doubt in the mind respecting the reality of an 
event, or the existence of a place, when we have 
merely been told of them, as there is when we 
have actually seen them. And we do not think it 
is going too far to say, that the process of induc¬ 
tion in the case of Christianity is much simpler, 
and much less liable to mistake, and much better 

F 


26 


SERMON II. 


fitted for issuing in unequivocal results, than the 
process of induction which must be gone through 
in the case of natural religion. The general^ 
foundation of our reasoning is the same. We 
have testimony and observation for the miraculous 
facts which are adduced in favor of Christianity ; 
and we have testimony and observation for the 
ordinary facts on which natural religion is built. 
But miracles, from their very nature, carry a much 
readier, and clearer, and more irresistible convic¬ 
tion to the mind, than ordinary facts can possibly 
do. In the latter case the argument is much 
more abstruse than it- needs to be in the former. 
And when we have once established the truth of 
the Christian record, we have at the same time, 
and by necessary consequence, established the 
truth of every particular doctrine which it con¬ 
tains ; whereas there is not a single point in the 
religion of nature, which does not require a train 
of reasoning peculiar to itself,—for its discovery, 
or for its confirmation. It is probably owing to 
these circumstances, that, in point of fact, incom¬ 
parably more have been convinced by the evidence 
for Christianity, of its being the workmanship of 
God, than were ever convinced or made religious 
by the mere study of creation, and the mere light 
of nature. 

But then we are told that miracles are incapa¬ 
ble of proof, because we have no experience for 
them, and all our experience is against them. 
This is the argument employed by the ablest and 
acutest of the deistical philosophers: and it has 
been commonly accounted the strong hold of infi¬ 
delity. And yet, were it admitted, it would not 


SERMON II. 


27 


only prove destructive of natural religion, as well 
as of revealed, but of all confidence in history, 
and of the progress of human knowledge and im¬ 
provement in every thing but in that which we 
ourselves had personally and individually witnes¬ 
sed. The power, and greatness, and wisdom of 
God, are proved from the works that he has made ; 
and the extent, and the magnificence, and the ar¬ 
rangement, and the adaptation of these works, are 
the facts from which we draw our belief and our 
admiration of his perfections. Now, of these facts 
we have, comparatively speaking, and with a few 
exceptions, no experience. For example, we have 
no experience of the vast wonders that have been 
descried by the telescope, nor of the minuter won¬ 
ders that the microscope has been instrumental in 
discovering, nor of that fine and admirable mechan¬ 
ism which the skill of anatomists has found to ex¬ 
ist in the animal frame, nor of the multifarious in¬ 
dications of contrivance and wisdom which the 
botanist has detected throughout the whole of the 
vegetable world. We have been informed of these 
things by others; we have credited the report 
which others have given us; and we have reason¬ 
ed from what they have told us with as much con¬ 
fidence as if we ourselves had been the original 
observers. But, according to the principle we are 
considering, all this is wrong; and we should re¬ 
ceive none of these things as true, and make none 
of them the foundation of our reasoning, till they 
become the subject of our own experience—till 
we shall have gone through a full course of astro¬ 
nomical observation, and chemical experiment, and 
physiological scrutiny, and, in short, seen every 


28 


SERMON II. 


thing in the universe with our own eyes. The 
absurdity of this is so obvious as to require no ex¬ 
posure. We every day believe a thousand things 
for which we have no corresponding examples in 
our experience. And were we to attempt to act 
otherwise, we should contradict the first principles 
of our rational nature, and put an end not only to 
religion, but to all science whatever. 

The last refuge to which unbelievers have fled 
on this subject, is a denial of the possibility of 
miracles altogether. But if they deny the possi¬ 
bility of miracles, what becomes of the attribute 
of omnipotence, which natural religion ascribes to 
God P Certainly, the Being who created the uni¬ 
verse can control all its movements, and do with 
every department of it as it seemeth good in his 
sight. And if we deny his competency to sus¬ 
pend the laws which he has established in the 
natural world, when that may not only be expedi¬ 
ent, but be absolutely necessary for making his 
will known to mankind, we do nothing less than 
derogate from the perfection of his nature, and 
call into question his almighty power. His origin¬ 
al formation of the earth and the heavens, was as 
substantially miraculous as any of the miraculous 
events of the New Testament. So is his uphold¬ 
ing the system in being, and order, and beauty. 
And we may as well deny his ability to send rain 
for fertilizing the ground, to which purpose it is 
appointed in the material world, as deny that he 
can empower a human being to perform miracles, 
in order to accomplish some important purposes 
in the moral world. It is strange, indeed, that 
Deists should question God’s prerogative to dis- 


SERMON II. 


29 


pense with the arrangements which lie himself has 
made, and deny the possibility of a miracle subse¬ 
quent to the creation, which was itself the most 
wonderful of all miracles, and which forms an es¬ 
sential article in their creed as believers in the re¬ 
ligion of nature, no less than it does in our creed 
as believers in the religion of Christ. 

IV. We appeal, in the fourth place, to the na¬ 
ture of those causes of infidelity which are not 
connected with any reasoning on the evidences 
of Christianity, or on the soundness of the objec¬ 
tions brought against it. 

It may here be remarked in general, that when¬ 
ever the cause of rejecting Christianity is some¬ 
thing different from a conviction, whether enlight¬ 
ened or mistaken, of its being an imposture, it is 
vain to look for any abiding principles of religion. 
There is in that case no discrimination made be¬ 
tween the things that are presented for considera¬ 
tion, so that one thing may be retained while an¬ 
other is rejected, and a wherefore distinctly assign¬ 
ed for the difference of treatment which they re¬ 
ceive. Were the judgement to be exercised in 
this manner, we can easily see it possible, that 
one particular form of religion might be laid aside 
by some individuals, who might nevertheless con¬ 
sistently adopt another form. But when the ques¬ 
tion ceases to respect the real truth or falsehood 
of the system under consideration, and to hinge 
entirely on feelings, and views, and circumstances, 
that are independent of its external evidence or 
its essential merits, there can be no security for 
its being embraced under any modification what- 
f 2 


30 


SERMON II. 


ever. If a man rejects the Gospel from any thing' 
but a belief, produced by reasoning of some kind 
or another, you have no hold at all on his attach¬ 
ment to religion. It becomes the mere sport of 
his likings and his dislikings, of his humors and 
caprices, of his tumultuary passions and his vary¬ 
ing interests. In obedience to these, he has 
thrown away the religion of Christ; and in obe¬ 
dience to these he may also throw away the reli¬ 
gion of nature, even though its truth were capable 
of mathematical demonstration. There is no long¬ 
er a single doctrine, be it ever so indisputable, 
and be it ever so dissimilar to the peculiarities of 
the Christian revelation, to which you can for a 
moment count, either on the assent of his under¬ 
standing, or on the homage of his affections. 

But, in farther illustration of this point, let us 
attend for a little to the most prevalent of those 
causes of infidelity to which we now allude. The 
most prevalent of them seem to be, Inconsiderate¬ 
ness, Pride of Understanding, and Moral Deprav¬ 
ity. 

1. And first, as to Inconsiderateness. How 
many are there who have never thought at all 
on the subject of Christianity, or whose attention 
to it has been so slight and passing as to be inca¬ 
pable of producing any effect! Ignorant of it, be¬ 
cause they have not made it a subject of study, 
and content to remain in ignorance, rather than 
be at any pains to inform themselves about its na¬ 
ture and its truth, they cannot fail to be unbeliev¬ 
ers. And having been long accustomed to treat 
it with indifference, they have acquired such a 
habit of carelessness, that it is almost impossible 
to bring it under their serious notice for a moment, 


SERMON II. 


31 


or to make them look upon it with the least de¬ 
gree of concern. 

But if the religion of Christ bespeaks their at¬ 
tention in vain, what probability is there that the 
religion of nature will command it ? Does not the 
former contain all which the latter pretends to 
teach, and that, in a far higher degree of purity 
and clearness ? While it thus possesses the whole 
of that claim which the other has on the regards 
of mankind, has it not an additional claim, derived 
from the professed purpose and the apparent ne¬ 
cessity of its peculiar system ? And does not the 
foundation of this additional claim imply the most 
forcible and affecting appeal that can be made to 
the human mind ? Is there more—is there not 
infinitely less—interest in the tenets even of the 
most unexceptionable scheme of Deism that ever 
was propounded, than is to be found in the pages 
of Christianity, which gives all those tenets in their 
most perfect form, impresses on them the authori¬ 
ty of a revelation from heaven, and associates 
with them the wonders of an everlasting redemp¬ 
tion ? Is it a more easy or a more inviting task 
to go through the evidences of natural theology, 
than it is to go through the evidences of revealed 
theology ? Will that man be induced to contem¬ 
plate God merely as the author of nature, whom 
we cannot prevail upon to contemplate him as a 
Being that unites with this great character the 
still more endearing and attractive character of 
the Saviour of a ruined world ? Will he, who re¬ 
fuses to read of the Almighty in that volume 
which holds itself out as his written word, and 
speaks of him in language so plain, and yet so 


32 


SERMON II. 


sublime, and gives a delineation of his character 
and his government which looks as if his own un¬ 
erring hand had drawn it, consent to be employed 
in spelling out his name, and his attributes, and 
his will, in the more obscure and unsatisfactory 
volume of creation ? Will any one be tempted to 
embrace the doctrines of Providence and Immor¬ 
tality, as discovered by the light of unaided rea¬ 
son, or to apply himself to that process by which 
the discovery is to be achieved, who has been ut¬ 
terly heedless of these doctrines, when clothed with 
all the vividness, and pathos, and grandeur, with 
which they have been depicted by the pen of in¬ 
spiration ? 

Let any person, in short, compare the Deist’s 
system with that of the Christian, and say which 
of them is most likely to affect those principles 
and susceptibilities of the mind, which, when 
brought into action, put an end to all indifference 
on the subject of religion—which of them is fitted 
to operate most powerfully on the curiosity, the 
hopes, the fears, the self-interest, the ambition, 
the gratitude, of those to whose attention they are 
offered. Let him, then, look abroad among those 
who may furnish examples of the influence of 
both, and observe if there be a single instance in 
which mere theism has roused to serious thought, 
or converted to practical piety, one individual 
whose carelessness had been proof against the 
claims of Christianity. And having thus consid¬ 
ered both the merits and the fact, let him deter¬ 
mine whether we are not entitled to conclude, that 
none who reject the Gospel from the cause that 
we have had particularly in view, can be expected 


SERMON II. 


33 


to stop short of general irreligion, or to retain any 
thing whatever that deserves a different or a bet¬ 
ter name, 

2, While there are some who reject the Gos¬ 
pel from mere Inconsiderateness, there are others 
who reject it from Intellectual Pride. 

These are to be found chiefly among men of 
literature and science. They have made, or think 
that they have made, great attainments in phi¬ 
losophy and learning. And in consequence of 
this successful cultivation, real or imagined, of 
their mental faculties, they stand high in the es¬ 
teem of the world, and they stand still higher in 
their own. They conceive themselves equal to 
any undertaking in which they may be pleased to 
engage. Every thing that is worthy of admission 
into their creed, they hold to be completely with¬ 
in the reach of their understanding. And in noth¬ 
ing can they brook authority or dictation, so far 
as it supposes their want of capacity, or controls 
the exercise of their powers, or tends to lower 
their consciousness of personal ability. By ac¬ 
quiescing in any thing of this kind, they would 
feel degraded in their own minds, and would be 
ashamed to lift up their heads in the presence of 
their fellows. 

Actuated by such a spirit, they perceive in 
Christianity what determines them against it, 
without any precise knowledge of its merits, or 
any accurate inquiry into its pretensions. For 
aught they know, it may be supported by the 
most irrefragable evidence. But then it interferes 
with their previous notions; it often rises above 
their comprehension; it puts a check on some of 


34 


SERMON II. 


their favorite speculations; it insists upon hum¬ 
bling- all their high thoughts, and making all their 
decisions and convictions unreservedly submissive 
to what is revealed in the word of God. And on 
these accounts they repudiate the faith of Jesus, 
and are even ambitious to take their place in the 
ranks of infidelity. 

Now, it is very obvious that the same thing 
must happen with regard to natural religion—if 
natural religion is to be viewed as a fixed and de¬ 
terminate system, whose doctrines, though not 
supported by that very kind of evidence which is 
employed to establish the doctrines of Christiani¬ 
ty, are yet supported by such evidence as gives 
the mind a settled conviction of their truth, and 
are held to be not only demonstrably true, but in¬ 
finitely more important than any thing else that 
can become the subject of consideration. 

Will not every man perceive at once, that it is 
full of what we call mysteries ;—that it contains 
a great deal which is incomprehensible to human 
intellect;—that its very first and fundamental 
principles are as incapable of being understood 
and explained as any one dogma within the com¬ 
pass of Revelation ;—that there is nothing more 
revolting to us, as being above the reach of our 
conception, in such tenets as those of the Trinity, 
the Atonement, and the Resurrection, than there 
is in the proposition that there is a Being who is 
himself without cause, and yet the cause and cre¬ 
ator of all things, and that though unextended, he 
is every where present ? 

Does it not necessarily interfere with every no¬ 
tion, and does it not necessarily bar every sort of 


i 


SERMON II, 


35 


speculation, which trenches in the least degree on 
any one of its articles of belief—which can affect, 
their credit, or which can diminish their influence ? 
And are the persons of whom we speak so simple 
in their notions, and are they so circumscribed in 
their speculations, as to stop exactly at the line 
which fences round the religion'of nature, compre¬ 
hending as it does within its wide dominion, both 
mind and matter, earth and heaven, the history of 
the past and the anticipation of the future, the 
world that now is and that which is to come ? 

Does it not say to every one who embraces it, 
“Hitherto may you come, but no further; these 
principles which you have adopted are truly divine, 
and awfully momentous ; they are mysterious, but 
still you must believe and hold by them: far from 
harboring any opinion that contradicts or tends to 
invalidate them, you must subordinate all your 
faculties and all your wishes to their paramount 
authority; and when you have indulged in any 
conjecture, or set up any theory, or come to any 
conclusion, that stands opposed to them, you have 
done what is wrong and inadmissible, and you 
must retrace your steps, and you must keep your¬ 
selves strictly within the limits which I prescribe, 
and patiently submit to the restraints which I im¬ 
pose ?” 

And are these trammels, I would ask, likely to 
be endured by men who have rejected the Gospel 
because it tends to humble their intellectual pride 
—because it offers to their faith what they cannot 
fully understand, and sets bounds to their passion 
for speculation, which it must not pass ? If in the 
exercise of their mental powers they must not be 


36 


SERMON II. 


offended by difficulties which they cannot solve, 
nor fettered by restrictions which it is unlawful 
for them to break through, it is not to be wonder¬ 
ed at that they dislike and cast away from them 
the Christian religion; but if the Christian reli¬ 
gion be obnoxious to them on such grounds as 
these, we do not see how it is possible for them 
to be reconciled to natural religion, or to respect 
it as a scheme for the regulation of their faith and 
practice. There is but one way of securing for it 
any thing like a fixed place in their attachment; 
and that is, by depriving it of all precision and 
certainty; by reducing it to a set of vague and 
indefinite articles, with which they may use the 
utmost latitude of freedom, and which lose all 
their sacredness, whenever they stand in the way 
of some new fancy of their own; and thus, by 
giving it such an unstable, unmeaning, and unin- 
fluential character, as evidently brings it down to 
the same level with infidelity itself, and makes it 
a matter of almost perfect indifference whether 
those who profess it call themselves Deists or 
Atheists. 

3. But by far the greatest proportion of unbe¬ 
lievers, are so from the influence of Moral De¬ 
pravity. 

This cause operates upon men who know about 
Christianity, and who reason about it; and it op¬ 
erates upon men who are ignorant of its claims on 
their assent, and who never think of any argu¬ 
ment on the subject. 

The former pretend to disbelieve it on princi¬ 
ple, while in reality they are infidels because their 
hearts and deeds are evil; or their impatience, 


SERMON II. 


37 


under its moral discipline leads them to seek for, 
and thus seeking for, they easily persuade them¬ 
selves that they find, absurdity in its doctrine, 
and insufficiency in its evidence. And they dis¬ 
cover in the objections brought against it on both 
grounds, a force and a conclusiveness, of which, 
in other circumstances, they would have thought 
them entirely destitute. 

The latter are neither acquainted with the 
Gospel, nor do they study to make themselves 
acquainted with it. Neither before nor after 
their rejection of it, have they spent the slightest 
consideration on what it proposes to their faith, 
or on the soundness and security of those found¬ 
ations on which that faith may rest. They are 
not capable of reasoning, or they will not take 
the trouble to reason, or they are afraid to reason, 
on the validity of its pretensions to be a revela¬ 
tion from God, and to be at once the rule of their 
present conduct and the judge of their future fate. 
But they know this much of it, that it is alto¬ 
gether holy. They cannot read a page of its re¬ 
cord,—they cannot look into any one of its de¬ 
partments—they cannot even hear of it from the 
most mistaken of its votaries, without perceiving 
that its spirit and its letter are alike and utterly 
hostile to “ all unrighteousness and ungodliness 
of men.” They see that it proposes to subject 
them to a degree of control to which they have 
not been accustomed, and under which they do 
not choose to be placed. They are aware that it 
peremptorily commands them to renounce and 
to abstain from every vicious indulgence, how- 


G 


38 


SERMON II. 


ever dear and inveterate it may be ; to perform 
many duties to which they feel a strong and in¬ 
superable aversion; to make a number of painful 
sacrifices, in order to preserve such a character as 
will be acceptable to God; to adopt and adhere 
to a plan of life wholly inconsistent with that ir¬ 
regular and unbridled course which they have 
hitherto pursued, and in which their passions and 
their habits impel them to continue. And they 
are farther aware, that it not only requires these 
things, but that it distinctly withholds the prom¬ 
ise of a single blessing from those who do not 
comply with its requirements, and denounces the 
most awful punishment against every one who 
does not surrender himself to its guidance and 
authority. So that to embrace it would be to 
“ cut off the right hand, and to pluck out the 
right eye,” of all on which they set the highest 
value, and to which they are most vehemently at¬ 
tached. And, resolved to persevere in sinful 
gratifications, they abandon it, without farther re¬ 
flection or inquiry, as a yoke of bondage which 
they are neither able nor willing to bear. 

In both these classes, the cause of infidelity is 
the same. It is the contrariety which subsists 
between the moral character of the gospel, and 
the moral character which they are determin¬ 
ed to maintain. It is that the Gospel requires 
a practical homage, to which their evil heart, 
in its inclinations and in its purposes, cherishes a 
hardened opposition. It is that the practices to 
which they are addicted, and which they cannot 
be prevailed upon to forsake, are at irreconcile- 


SERMON II. 


39 


able enmity with every thing which the Gospel 
holds forth to their contemplation, and with every 
thing which the Gospel enjoins on their obser¬ 
vance. 

And surely it is unnecessary for me to say any 
thing to convince you of the vast extent to which 
this cause works for the interests of infidelity. A 
little knowledge of human nature would have led 
you to anticipate that, of the multitude who would 
either refuse to accept of Christianity, or who 
would cast it off after having professed it, the 
great majority would be carried away by no other 
motive than their hatred of its pure and righteous 
law. And you have only to cast your eye over 
the many who do not believe, to be satisfied from 
what is actually realized among them, that our 
Saviour gave the true and general solution of the 
case when he said, “ This is the condemnation, 
that light is come into the world, and that men 
love darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds are evil.” 

Now, if immorality be thus productive of un¬ 
belief with respect to the religion of Christ, it will 
produce a similar effect with respect to the re¬ 
ligion of nature. The moral system of the one is 
nothing else, as to its general spirit and leading 
features, than the moral system of the other. 
We are not aware, at least, of any essential dif¬ 
ference between them; nor have we ever seen 
a rule of life propounded by any of the apostles of 
deism, which was not principally and obviously 
borrowed from the Gospel. Nay, the enemies of 
the Gospel have expressed their admiration of its 
moral precepts; and it cannot be supposed that 


40 


SERMON II. 


they would do so, unless it were from the convic ¬ 
tion that these are the very precepts which are 
sanctioned and taught by their own peculiar 
creed. 

If indeed deism has a law for the government 
of human conduct totally dissimilar to that which 
is enacted in the book of inspiration; if it be, 
what the latter assuredly is not, friendly to vice 
and inimical to virtue ; if it leave those who have 
embraced it to the free gratification of their pas¬ 
sions and appetites, and insist upon no higher at¬ 
tainments in purity and rectitude than they may 
find it convenient to make,—then let this be fair¬ 
ly avowed, and we shall take up another line of 
argument, and by that come more speedily and 
more effectually to our conclusion. But nothing 
like this will be maintained. It will be allowed, 
or rather it is always urged, that natural religion 
gives no encouragement to vice, but on the con¬ 
trary, is the friend of moral goodness. And it 
will only be affirmed that it does not carry its pre¬ 
tensions to strictness so high as Christianity, and 
that it leaves out of its catalogue of virtues some 
qualities and actions which Christianity includes. 
This statement, however, does not alter the case, 
so long as deism is said to discountenance and in¬ 
terdict the sins to which man feels the strongest 
propensity, which he is most powerfully tempted 
to commit, and into which experience shews that 
he most frequently falls. 

In truth, the persons we are now speaking of 
do not reject Christianity on account of that su¬ 
perior rigidness with which it watches, and di¬ 
rects, and governs those who submit to it. They 


SERMON II. 


41 


have not penetrated so far into its spirit and its 
maxims. They have never looked up to those 
loftier eminences of self-denial and heavenly¬ 
mindedness and virtue, to which it beckons its 
disciples, and to which it is fitted to raise them. 
They have only seen the broader lineaments in 
which it frowns upon licentiousness and crime ; 
and these are sufficient to keep them at a distance 
from it, and to render it the object of their uncon¬ 
querable aversion. It subjects them to a rule which 
they must not violate ; and this, independently 
of any specific or detailed exhibition of the par¬ 
ticulars which the rule implies, is so inconsistent 
with, that impatience of all moral restraint, that 
desire and resolution to live as they please, that 
headstrong passionateness and waywardness of 
disposition by which they are actuated, that they 
will not and cannot be reconciled to it. It forbids 
profaneness, injustice, falsehood, qruelty, incon¬ 
tinence, intemperance, idleness, covetousness, 
strife, revenge, oppression, insubordination; and 
in its prohibiting one and all of these delinquen¬ 
cies, we find the secret of their relinquishing or 
disbelieving Christianity. But, surely, having 
thrown of Christianity on such grounds, it is not 
to be expected that they will stop short at this 
stage of unbelief—that natural religion will arrest 
them in their career—that it can set up such a 
barrier as will prevent them from passing on to 
that utter regardlessness of religious and moral 
obligation, which, by whatever names it may be 
disguised, amounts to nothing less than substan¬ 
tial and practical atheism. For, according to the 
g 2 


42 


SERMON II. 


account given of it by its own adherents, it has 
nothing to gratify their corrupt inclinations. To 
them it has no allurement, and by them it can be 
viewed with no affection, so long as it exacts from 
them the cultivation of holiness, and warns, and 
rebukes, and threatens them on account of neg¬ 
lecting it. But this we are told is its essential 
character. The truths which it presents to them, 
the precepts which it enjoins upon them, and the 
prospects which it sets before them, are all intol¬ 
erant of the indulgences, for the sake of which 
they were displeased with the Christian faith, 
and put it away from them. Its doctrines are 
not to be considered as mere subjects for the ex 7 
ercise of an ingenious intellect or of a lively fan¬ 
cy, and which we may think of, and believe in, 
and talk about, like any topic of elegant literature 
or of abstract science, without feeling ourselves 
bound by them to follow any particular course of 
action. They must all be viewed as connected 
with the attributes, and as emanating from the ap¬ 
pointment, of that great Being who sits upon the 
throne of the universe ; and as conveying to us, 
in so far as we give credit to them, the intima¬ 
tions of his will respecting our conduct, just as 
certainly and authoritatively as if they were made 
known to us by an audible voice from heaven. 

In this light it is that natural religion must be 
regarded by its votaries, if it is to have any mean¬ 
ing and to be of any use in the world. It pre¬ 
sents to them a holy God, as their ruler, their 
witness, and their judge. It inculcates their fu¬ 
ture accountability to him for the manner in 


SERMON II. 


43 


which they act in the present world. It marks 
out to them a certain line of conduct which it is 
their indispensable duty to pursue, and a certain 
line of conduct which it is their indispensable du¬ 
ty to shun. It promises them no peace nor safe- 
I ty—it assures them of discomfort, and threatens 
I them with punishment, if they do not conform to 
what they discover from nature and reason and 
conscience to be the will of the Supreme Being 
concerning their deportment. And when its abet¬ 
tors give us any thing like a minute account of 
its requirements, we find it teaching with clear¬ 
ness, and enforcing by its own proper sanctions, 
such virtues as these—piety, justice, truth, mercy, 
purity, sobriety, diligence, peaceableness, for¬ 
bearance, disinterestedness, and good order. But 
this being the case, can those who are unbelievers 
from moral depravity be in any measure better 
satisfied with deism than with the Gospel ? Or 
[ can it be pretended, that having deserted the lat- 
' ter on account of its opposition to their depraved 
feelings and habits, they can ever in that respect 
I find any refuge or deliverance in the former ? 

' There is no way of supporting such an allegation 
but by conceding, as we have already hinted, 
that deism permits those who have embraced it 
to follow their own desires with little or with no 
control, and to be virtuous and vicious, as it may 
happen to suit their views, or to promote their 
interests. And whenever this concession is made, 
deism is plainly acknowledged to be a system of 
mere opinion or of mere profession, which the 
worthless have recourse to, and which invites 
c 3 




44 


SERMON II. 


them to have recourse to it, just that they may 
have a pretext for being altogether irreligious, 
and for living without God, as they are living 
without Christ in the world. 

Such, we apprehend, to be the natural and ne¬ 
cessary effect of abrogating Christianity. What¬ 
ever be the grounds on which this is done, it 
would appear, both from the nature of these 
grounds and from the aspect which deism has ev¬ 
er assumed, and still presents to us, that the re¬ 
jection of all religion as an object of grave belief, 
or as a rule of human conduct, is the inevitable 
consequence. And for the system which we 
shall have thrown away, we must lay our account 
with adopting a system which it is frightful to 
contemplate even in theory, and whose visitations 
on the character and condition of the world, it 
must be terrible, beyond expression, to endure. 

But atheism could not long maintain its ascend¬ 
ancy. This volcano of misery and of crime, after 
pouring forth its terrors on the scene of human 
life, would become exhausted by its own destruc¬ 
tive efforts, and sink into the stillness and the 
dreariness of a wide-spread desolation. Man is 
so framed, and society is so constituted, that re¬ 
ligion we must have in some form or another. 
And all the knowledge of human nature with 
which we are furnished by experience would Lead 
us to expect, that whatever aspect the case might 
assume at the beginning, it would gradually de¬ 
generate and settle into the errors and abomina¬ 
tions of heathenism. Christianity rescued us from 
heathenism, and if we extinguish the light of 


SERMON II. 


45 


Christianity, I see not how we can avoid the in¬ 
ference, that to the darkness of heathenism we 
must return. This is the final and unavoidable 
result. 

It is in vain to tell us here of our means of im¬ 
provement being so superior to those which were 
anciently enjoyed, and of their being a sufficient 
security against such a degeneracy as that which 
we have supposed. They may, indeed, prevent 
any decline in the arts and sciences of human 
wisdom, and may still be instrumental, not only 
in perpetuating, but in carrying forward the mere 
secular civilization of the world. Or they may 
be employed, as indeed they are with gratifying 
success, in upholding the existence, and vindicat¬ 
ing the purity, and extending the dominion of 
that System which is contained in a written re¬ 
cord, and has the image and superscription of 
divinity stamped upon it. But when they are 
applied to the preservation of religion, in the cir¬ 
cumstances in which we suppose religion to be 
placed after Christianity is abolished, they have 
quite a different task to achieve from that which 
is assigned to them in the two cases just mention¬ 
ed. And it is a task to which the history of our 
race demonstrates them to be totally inadequate. 

There might remain among a few of the more 
enlightened, some occasional glimpses of religious 
truth, as we find to have been the case in the 
pagan world. But the degradation of the great 
mass of the people to that ignorance, and idola¬ 
try, and superstition, out of which the Gospel 
had emancipated them, would be certain and 
complete. This retrograde movement might be 
g 4 


46 


SERMON II. 


retarded by the advantages which we have de¬ 
rived from that system, whose influence we should 
continue to feel long after we had ceased to ac¬ 
knowledge the divinity of its source. But these 
advantages would, by degrees, lose their efficacy, 
even as mere matters of speculation, and give 
place to the workings of fancy, and credulity, 
and corruption. A radiance might still glow 
upon the high places of the earth, after the sun of 
revelation had gone down; and the brighter and 
the longer it had shone, the more gradual would 
be the decay of that light and warmth which it 
had left behind it. But everywhere there would 
be the sad tokens of a departed glory and of a 
coming night. Twilight might be protracted 
through the course of many generations, and still 
our unhappy race might be able to read, though 
dimly, many of the wonders of the eternal god¬ 
head, and to wind a dubious way through the 
perils of the wilderness. But it would be twilight 
still; shade would thicken after shade ; every 
succeeding age would come wrapped in a deeper 
and a deeper gloom ;—till at last, that flood of 
glory which the Gospel is now pouring upon the 
world, would be lost and buried in impenetrable 
darkness. 

Now, my friends, the argument which we have 
been stating and illustrating, unquestionably fur¬ 
nishes no positive or direct proof of the truth of 
Christianity. It cannot produce this effect, and 
it has not been employed for this purpose. But 
still, it may answer two important ends. 

In the first place, it may help to guard you a- 
gainst feeling or shewing any indulgence to those 


SERMON II. 


47 


doubts of the Gospel as a system of religious 
truth and duty, which will sometimes intrude 
themselves into a reflecting mind. If the rejec¬ 
tion of the Gospel is so apt to carry you into gen¬ 
eral scepticism and infidelity—if the rejection of 
the Gospel seems necessarily to draw such awful 
consequences after it, then surely you will not 
rashly or easily allow your faith in the Gospel to 
be shaken. You will try every means of satisfy¬ 
ing yourselves of its truth, before you consent to 
give it up as a fable. And you will consider its 
evidences with that prepossession, as just as it is 
natural, which arises from finding that it forms 
your only barrier against an inundation of all the 
evils and all the horrors of Atheism. 

In the second place, it may serve to show you 
what sort of persons they are, who would root out 
from your minds the faith of Jesus Christ, and for 
this end are continually plying you with objec¬ 
tions, perplexing you with difficulties, and where 
they cannot reason, endeavouring to laugh you 
away from the belief and the hope of the Bible. 
Either they have not considered the subject in all 
its bearings, and especially are not aware of the 
effects to be anticipated if their efforts succeed ; 
or, knowing all this, they are reckless of conse¬ 
quences, and care not how immoral or how mis¬ 
erable you become, provided they can exhibit you 
as trophies to the power of their sophistry and 
their ridicule. But, in both cases, they are your 
greatest enemies, while it may be they are in the 
guise of your greatest friends. On the former 
supposition, they are incompetent to guide you or 
to counsel you; for with all their pretensions to 


48 


SERM O^N I I . 


wisdom, they have not the wisdom to inquire or 
to calculate at what expense you must give away 
the principles which they are persuading you to 
renounce. On the latter supposition, they shew 
themselves to be utterly destitute of those senti¬ 
ments of regard for your welfare, without which 
it would be madness to put yourselves under their 
direction ; for if they had the heart to love you, 
or even the condescension to pity you, they would 
rather allow you to remain in your delusion of 
purity, and hope, and happiness, than awaken you 
to the dreadful realities of guilt, and wretchedness, 
and despair. Do not therefore listen to their 
language, which, if it be false, will deceive you to 
ruin; and which, if it be true, can still secure for 
you nothing hat ruin. “ By their fruits ye shall 
know them.” Apply this test—abide by its re¬ 
sult—and believing in God ye shall also believe 
in Christ, who in the experience of thousands is 
the source of blessings unspeakable, and by whom 
all who put their trust in him shall be made holy 
now, and happy for evermore. 


SERMON III. 


SAME TEXT. 

From what we have already stated, it appears, 
that if men were to renounce and abolish Chris¬ 
tianity, they would in all probability become athe¬ 
ists in the first instance, and finally return to that 
Pagan darkness, out of which it had been the 
work of Christianity to bring them. Such conse¬ 
quences are sufficient to alarm every reflecting 
mind. They give an importance to the faith of 
the gospel beyond what is usually attached to it; 
and should make those who feel any tendency to 
infidelity, reflect and hesitate long before they 
give way to that “ evil heart of unbelief” with re¬ 
spect to Christ, which leads so directly to a total 
“ departure from the living God.” 

We shall now consider the subject in a some¬ 
what different light. Supposing the rejection of 
the gospel to be accompanied with the rejection 
of natural religion, or with an entire indifference 




60 


SERMON III. 


to it, let us contemplate the effects of this general 
infidelity, on the conduct and character of those 
to whom it attaches. In this we shall be furnish¬ 
ed with a powerful reason for attending to the 
cautionary language of the text; for it will be 
seen that Infidelity is in every respect hostile to the 
interests of morality . 

The connexion between principle and practice 
is obvious and indisputable. The nature of the 
former, as good or bad, has an influence in im¬ 
parting the same qualities to the latter. There 
may, indeed, be occasionally such interferences 
as to prevent the operation of the one upon the 
other, or to render its effect less decided and less 
perceptible. But all that we maintain, is the gen¬ 
eral fact; and the reality of this cannot be denied 
with any show of reason or of truth. No doubt 
there have been men who denied it; for there 
have been always some ready to deny any thing, 
the admission of which would condemn a corrupt 
propensity, or overturn a favorite hypothesis. 
Some have contended that it is of no moment 
what we believe, provided our life be good. And 
the proposition contained in this is so convenient, 
that it has grown into a sort of proverbial maxim, 
and is quoted to justify or to excuse opinions, 
which, if acted upon, must encourage those who 
hold them, to deviate from the path of rectitude. 
To such gainsayers, however, we can give no 
heed: neither their strongest declarations, nor 
most artful sophistry, can make us discredit the 
feeling and experience of our own mind ; and we 
have just to appeal, not to the history of mankind 
at large, but to the recollection, and consciousness, 




SERMON III. 


51 


and conduct, of every individual around us for the 
truth of our assertion, when we say, that the or¬ 
dinary course and tenor of a man’s actions will 
correspond with the complexion of those senti¬ 
ments which he sincerely entertains, and of those 
doctrines which he conscientiously believes. 

Now, Christianity, or true religion, has a direct 
and powerful tendency to make those who submit 
to it, morally good. It provides us with a precise 
and complete rule of duty; and in this respect it 
has done what no other form of religion, and what 
no scheme of philosophy, has ever been able to ac¬ 
complish. But it has done a great deal more; 
it has furnished us with motives to the cultivation 
of holiness, the most suitable and persuasive that 
can possibly be conceived. It addresses itself to 
all the various powers and susceptibilities of our 
nathre. It operates through the decisions of the 
understanding, and through the affections of the 
heart. It speaks to our hatred and our love ; to 
our hope and our fear; to our gratitude and our 
interest. And in the arguments by which it 
works upon these, there is a grandeur, and an au¬ 
thority, and a pathos, which no mind can altogeth¬ 
er or continually resist. It represents us as pla¬ 
ced under the government of that great Being 
who created and sustains the universe; whose 
glory is concerned in punishing the rebellious, and 
rewarding the obedient; and whose piercing eye 
looks through every corner of the soul, and follows 
us into our deepest retirements, “beholding the 
evil and the good.” It brings before us, in the 
work of redemption, such a manifestation of his 
justice and of his mercy, as is admirably calculat- 


52 


SERMON III. 


ed, on the one hand, to restrain from the excesses 
of licentiousness and crime, those upon whom the 
tenderness of a Saviour might have been lavished 
in vain; and on the other hand, to charm and al¬ 
lure into the very devotedness of virtue, such as 
would have set their face as adamant against all 
the terrors of a broken law, and all the majesty of 
an avenging God. It unfolds to our view a scene 
of future retribution, the most awful and impres¬ 
sive which imagination can paint,—whose throne 
is to be occupied by the King of kings ; whose trans¬ 
actions are to embrace the character and the fate 
of every individual of our race ; and whose awards 
are those of immutable rectitude, and stretch into 
the boundless duration of eternity. And while it 
thus fences round the interests of moral purity by 
the magnificent representations of a God who rules 
over all, and who will bring every thing into judge¬ 
ment, it sets itself to secure them still more mi¬ 
nutely, and still more effectually, by never losing 
sight of its votaries for a moment in the path of 
life—by directing them in every step they take— 
fortifying them against every temptation to which 
they are exposed—administering to them every 
aid which they, require—putting an appropriate 
check on every evil propensity—presenting a suit¬ 
able stimulus to every good affection—and mak¬ 
ing all the doctrines which it reveals, and all the 
precepts which it enjoins, and all the sanctions by 
which it enforces them, bear with a sanctifying 
energy upon every department of the character. 
So that, making allowance for those imperfections 
which adhere to every thing that is connected 
with humanity in its present state, they who have 


SERMON III. 


53 


imbibed its spirit, and conformed themselves to its 
dictates, must be distinguished by the highest at¬ 
tainments in moral excellence. And that this is 
the tendency of Christianity, is not only abundant¬ 
ly evident to every one who is acquainted with its 
nature, but has been explicitly and frequently ac¬ 
knowledged by almost all those who have never¬ 
theless discarded the system itself, as not substan¬ 
tiated by sufficient proof. This is their testimony ; 
and though we do not need it, and would not rest 
our argument upon it, yet it is valuable as pro¬ 
ceeding from adversaries, and may be allowed to 
put the statement beyond controversy, that true 
religion is of high importance to the morality of 
the world. 

But infidelity would, of course, annihilate that 
advantage. It would destroy all the knowledge 
of Virtue, and all the motives to practise it, which 
are peculiar to the Christian faith. In this pro¬ 
portion it would inflict a certain and unequivocal 
injury on the great interests of morality. And 
none who have attended to the subject will ven¬ 
ture to say, that the injury would be either slight 
or unimportant. 

The magnitude of the injury, however, is not 
to be estimated fully, till we have asked and 
solved the question; When infidelity has taken 
away the moral influence of religion, what has it 
left, or what has it substituted, to compensate in 
any measure for that of which it has deprived us ? 
We will be bold to answer that it has left noth¬ 
ing, and that it can substitute nothing of any 
consequence. It leaves us to discover for our¬ 
selves a rule of life. But that must necessarily 


54 


SERMON III. 


be modified by the influence of caprice, of pas¬ 
sion, and of interest; and thus, partaking of the 
imperfections and errors of those by whom it is 
formed, it cannot fail to re-act with pernicious 
effect, and to perpetuate or increase the corrup¬ 
tion from which it sprung. And then what pal¬ 
try and inefficient considerations does it propose, 
in order to induce men to act a good and honour¬ 
able part! How paltry and how inefficient, in 
comparison of those which it has proscribed as 
the dreams of superstition, or as the devices of 
priestcraft! It gives us the fear of feeble man, 
who lives but for a day, for the fear of the mighty 
and everlasting God. It gives us the good opinion 
of creatures like ourselves, for the approbation of 
Him whose favour is pregnant with innumerable 
blessings. It gives us a regard to the little tran¬ 
sitory interests of time, for the prospect of that 
happiness and glory which is commensurate with 
eternity. These, and such as these, are the prin¬ 
ciples by which it would make us holy. But can 
any one say, or can any one suppose, that they are 
adequate to the production of such an effect? 
That they are capable of leading men to any 
high degrees of virtue ? That they* are powerful 
enough to deter or dissuade them even from the 
lowest vices, or from the most atrocious crimes ? 
No, my friends ; if you root out from their minds 
the conviction that there is a just God who reigns 
over them, and bring them to believe that when 
they die they have nothing more to fear or to suf¬ 
fer, it is impossible to say how far they will pro¬ 
ceed in criminal indulgence. These mighty fet¬ 
ters being removed, all the other restraints impos- 


SERMON III. 


55 


ed upon their passions would be like the cords 
with which Sampson was bound, and which, when 
he put forth his strength, “became as flax that had 
been burnt with fire.” 

We are aware, indeed, that the original cor¬ 
ruption of human nature is denied. But that is 
of no consequence to the present argument. As 
to the cause of the fact that mankind are in a 
state of depravity, we do not inquire. We do 
not inquire whether their depravity is inherent and 
inherited, or whether it is superinduced by bad 
example, and by the infelicity of outward circum¬ 
stances. Still the fact is, that there is an evil 
heart in every descendant of Adam ; that this evil 
heart is the seat of many violent lusts and many 
wayward propensities ; and that these are called 
into action by a thousand surrounding temptations. 
And it is not extravagant to affirm that they are 
not to be controlled and kept within due bounds, 
by speculations on the intrinsic beauty of virtue, 
or by a dread of the temporal inconveniences and 
discomforts of vice, or even by threatenings of the 
most awful punishments with which iniquity is vis¬ 
ited at the hands of men, or by any other, or by 
all the other means which infidelity can employ 
to preserve its votaries in the right path. Why, 
my friends, we see with Avhat difficulty this is ef¬ 
fected, even among those who feel the influence 
of Christianity in all its authoritative and con¬ 
straining power ; how frequently it proves unavail¬ 
ing with them to prevent deeds of enormity; and 
how generally those who strive to attain, and have 
actually attained conformity to its law, have to la¬ 
ment the prevalence and the admixture of sin in 

H 


56 


Sermon i i i . 


their most worthy doings. And what could we 
anticipate, if this powerful agent in the work of 
righteousness were taken away, but that iniquity 
would rush in upon us like a flood ? If the tor¬ 
rent is already overflowing, or partially breaking 
through the strongest and loftiest barriers we can 
oppose to it, can we be so foolish as to expect that 
it will be arrested by any feebler obstacle which 
may be planted in its way ? So circumstanced and 
so constituted is the nature of man, that it needs 
all the dissiiasives from what is bad, and all the 
incentives to what is good, that can possibly be 
employed. And to destroy that engine of moral 
coercion and of moral improvement which is fur¬ 
nished by the Gospel, is not only to prevent its 
advancement towards perfection, but to secure 
its degradation beyond the possibility of recov¬ 
ery. 

And do not we see this realized among those 
who have set aside Christianity as a fable, and 
put away from them all regard to religious truth ? 
Do not we see them violating their moral obliga¬ 
tions as often as an allurement presents itself? 
Do not we see them neglecting the most sacred 
duties of life whenever it serves their worldly in¬ 
terest ? Do not we see them gratifying their un¬ 
hallowed lusts at the expense of health, and re¬ 
putation, and fortune ? Do not we see them run¬ 
ning into excesses of dissipation, or engaging in 
schemes of injustice, or perpetrating deeds of cru¬ 
elty, which the more reputable even of themselves 
would unite to reprobate? We do not say that 
such is the case in every instance of infidelity. 
There may be persons who are so constituted, and 


SERMON III. 


57 


so situated* as to be under no great temptation to 
proceed to those extremities of vice which we 
have mentioned, or even to exhibit any marked 
symptoms of immorality. But is not what I have 
stated the general fact which meets your observa¬ 
tion ? When you look to individuals—to families 
—to districts—to nations, that are deeply tinc¬ 
tured with infidelity, do not you find it accompa¬ 
nied with profligacy and crime ? From what you 
have witnessed in such cases, would not you feel 
yourselves warranted to conclude, that irreligion 
and immorality have a natural connection with 
each other among the hulk of mankind ? If you 
wished to encourage virtue, would you not deem 
it advisable to cherish a sense of religion; or is 
there any thing else, which, for that purpose, you 
would substitute in its place ; or would you con¬ 
sider it a matter of indifference, whether a sense 
of religion prevailed or not ? On the contrary, 
whatever you might feel or do yourselves, would 
not you wish your children instructed in the truths 
and maxims of Christianity, as the only effectual 
security for their good conduct ? And if you 
have neglected that point, will not you allow that 
you have acted the part neither of wise nor affec¬ 
tionate parents? When you.see an infidel indulg¬ 
ing in licentiousness and sin, is it not the remark 
which you uniformly make, that his practice is ex¬ 
actly what might have been expected from his 
principles ? When the adept in crime is training 
up his juvenile pupils to fraud and depredation, is 
it not his uniform concern to shut out from their 
view, whatever they may have learned of the fear 
of the Lord, and of the reverence that is due to 


58 


SERMON III. 


his name, and his sabbaths, and his word ? When 
he desires to lead on his disciples of maturer age 
and more established habits to deeds of tumult, 
and rapine, and violence, do not you find him in¬ 
dustrious in destroying all their belief in the Bible, 
and all their respect for the ministers of religion, 
and all their admiration of every thing that is done 
for the spiritual regeneration and religious im¬ 
provement of mankind ? And is it not notorious 
and undeniable, that a great proportion of our un¬ 
believers have become so, and continue so, not 
because they have reasoned themselves into infi¬ 
delity, (for of any correct knowledge, or any sober 
argument on the subject, they are quite guiltless,) 
but “because their deeds are evil ?”—because 
they are desirous or resolved to live at large, and 
cannot do so with any consistency, or with any free¬ 
dom, while the impressions of a holy God, and of 
a coming judgement, are still reigning in their 
minds? because they wish to have an apology for 
their past transgressions, and to have a warrant for 
future delinquency, and can find these no where 
but in the system they have fled to, which allows 
its votaries to act without control, and to sin with¬ 
out remorse ? Even in the case of those who can 
state, with some shew of learning and acuteness, 
the objections upon which they rest their unbelief, 
is it not certain that, in most instances, this unbe¬ 
lief originally sprung from impatience under the 
restraints which Christianity imposed upon their 
appetites, and that they have become reasoning 
infidels because they were immoral infidels ? And 
is it not obvious, that the spirit of their enmity to 
religion is kindled and kept alive by its absolute 


SERMON III. 


59 


and unbending claims on their unreserved sub¬ 
mission to the divine law ? And is there not in 
all this a most decisive proof, that infidelity is es¬ 
sentially and necessarily hostile to moral virtue, 
and to every thing by which it may be secured 
and promoted in the world ? 

But then it is said, in reply to all this, that im¬ 
moral conduct is as prevalent among Christians 
as among unbelievers ; and our attention is direct¬ 
ed to thousands who bear that character, and yet 
can break all the commandments of the moral law 
with as little ceremony as if there were not a word 
of truth in the Bible. In this statement, however, 
there is a very gross and palpable abuse of terms. 
We allow that there are many, professing to be 
Christians, to whom the charge is justly and strict¬ 
ly applicable. But then they are not really Christ¬ 
ians. Christianity does not acknowledge them; 
and has not got any hold of them; and is not re¬ 
sponsible for them. They are mere pretenders. 
They are infidels in disguise. And sacred as is 
the garb they wear, it just furnishes an additional 
evidence of the immoral tendency of infidelity, 
when we see infidelity breaking through all the 
decencies which that garb should have imposed, 
and deliberately trying to cover its impurities and 
its guilt with the robe of sanctity. This hypocri¬ 
sy has no more alliance with true religion, than 
counterfeit money has with the genuine coin. It 
looks like true religion, and it may pass in the 
eyes of the simple,* or in the reasonings of the 
sophist, for true religion. But it proceeds from 
infidelity alone, and it shows how far that system 
h 2 


60 


SERMON III. 


will carry its votaries in what is base and criminal, 
and authorizes us as much as any other circum¬ 
stance whatever, to denounce infidelity as the de¬ 
termined foe of all that is good, and virtuous, and 
honorable, in human conduct. 

At the same time, we do not mean to say that real 
Christians are either innocent or impeccable. Nu¬ 
merous are the failings, and sometimes aggravated 
are the sins, of which they are guilty. But then 
these are to them the subject of deep regret. 
They have fallen into them through the infirmity 
of their nature. It is the object and tendency of 
their peculiar principles to keep them unspotted 
from all such pollutions—from every kind, and 
from every degree, of moral pollution. This too 
is their constant aim; and every unworthy action 
they commit, is a departure from the leading de¬ 
sign and manifest influence of the faith which 
they .have embraced, and to whose sanctifying 
power they are nevertheless submissive in the 
general course and habit of their lives. 

Altogether different, however, is the case with 
infidelity. Whether it is openly avowed, or 
whether it is concealed under the hypocrite’s veil, 
its tendency and effect go to the destruction of 
every efficient restraint on the evil passions of our 
nature, and of every efficient motive to the culti¬ 
vation of moral purity and excellence; and when 
those who cherish it in their hearts do not go all 
the lengths to which it is quite ready to lead them, 
it is a deviation at once from their system and 
their practice, and must be attributed to causes 
which exist independently of it, and which operate 
in spite of it. 


% 


SERMON III. 


61 


Then it is affirmed, in positive terms, that reli¬ 
gion itself has done little for restraining licentious¬ 
ness and crime—that it has done much less than 
human laws—that if human laws were not in force, 
religion would be of no avail, when opposed to 
the passions and interests of men,—and, conse¬ 
quently, that infidelity cannot be the monstrous 
evil that we allege. All this has been affirmed. 
I have read it in books written and circulated for 
the instruction of our people, and written by the 
men who boast of their superiority to all prejudice, 
and with whom “ wisdom is to die.” And yet a 
more superficial or more unfounded allegation was 
never brought forward in the cause of error. 

We grant that religion has not done so much in 
promoting holiness as we could have desired, or 
as the consideration of it in the abstract might 
have led us to expect. But this does not by any 
means show the inefficacy of religion;—it only 
shows that religion has not been sufficiently prev¬ 
alent. It would be no objection to the utility of 
human laws, to say that they were often violated. 
And no more is it a valid objection to the utility 
of religion, that, through ignorance, or perversity, 
or unbelief, it has failed in a multitude of cases 
to preserve men in the paths of rectitude and vir¬ 
tue. It is not a compulsory system. It does not 
by any thing like physical force constrain us to be 
honest, and sober, and charitable. It adapts itself 
to the nature and condition of our moral frame ; 
and labors to convince the judgement, and to af¬ 
fect the heart, and in this way to persuade us to 
abstain from one course of conduct and to follow 
h 3 


62 SERMON III. 

another. And this it does with a power of argu¬ 
ment, which, upon the whole, must he attended 
with success ; though, for the reasons already as¬ 
signed, the practical impression which it produces 
will in numerous instances be feeble, while in 
some instances it will produce no practical im¬ 
pression at all. 

But it is too much to be told that religion does 
little or nothing for the virtue of the world, by the 
, very persons whose object it is to check its pro¬ 
gress, to impair its authority, to destroy its very 
existence. The fact which they adduce, suppos¬ 
ing it to be as extensive as they affirm, reflects no 
discredit upon that whose importance they would 
fain diminish. It is to be traced, in a great meas¬ 
ure, to themselves, and to others like-minded, who 
labour, with but too much success, to annihilate a 
system that is obnoxious to them, and then com¬ 
plain that the system which they have thus anni¬ 
hilated, is without influence and without advan¬ 
tage. If a remedy has been prescribed, and by 
terror or by sophistry I prevail upon the patient 
to refuse it, it is with a bad grace that 1 quote the 
agonizing death which ensues, as a proof that the 
physician is without skill, and that his medicine 
is without effect. 

But, in fact, religion has produced a powerful 
effect in purifying the heart and character of those 
among whom it has prevailed. Even heathenism, 
with all its absurdities, and all its imperfections, 
has exhibited a better character among its vota¬ 
ries than has ever been displayed by the abettors 
of infidelity, where they have existed in any con- 


SERMON III. 


63 


siderable number, and have thrown themselves 
entirely loose from the institutions and influence 
of Christianity. And when we look for the moral 
triumphs of Christianity itself, are they not re¬ 
corded in the page of history ? Are they not 
spread over many a country ? Are they not eve¬ 
ry day visible to our eyes, and every moment fill¬ 
ing our habitations with peace ? What myriads 
has it been instrumental in reclaiming from vice 
to virtue—myriads who would otherwise have 
never found their way out of the wilderness of 
sin! How many has it brought up from the low¬ 
est depths of profligacy ! How many, whose char¬ 
acter it has adorned with all that is good and 
great! These have been scattered through the 
great mass of society; and while they themselves 
are known and self-declared instances of the mor¬ 
alising power of religion, who can calculate the 
influence of the good instructions they have given 
to their children, and of the holy example which 
they have exhibited to all their multiplied neigh¬ 
borhoods ? Religion has a checking and control¬ 
ling power, even where it is not fully efficacious. 
There are many of whom we could not say that 
they are thoroughly pious and good, who have yet 
such a sense of religion as to be restrained from 
various practices which they would otherwise be 
addicted to—who resist temptations to particular 
sins, and appeal to Christianity as that which pre¬ 
vented them from yielding—who perform certain 
duties, and who perform them because they know 
at least that there is a God, and fear that there 
may be ajudgement—who do not cordially believe 
the doctrine of the cross, and yet in some respects 


64 


SERMON III. 


live above the world, whose dominion they were 
aware it was intended to destroy. Christianity 
has raised the tone of moral sentiment, and the 
standard of moral duty, wherever it has been in¬ 
troduced. Into the great mass of every society 
that it visits, it carries a leaven of sacred and 
sanctifying power, which reaches to some who 
might have been deemed the least capable of be¬ 
ing affected by its agency, and which imparts to 
all a purer and a loftier feeling of the “ things that 
are excellent” than they ever before possessed. 
Even the more respectable of the infidels them¬ 
selves, though they may not be sensible of it, or 
may not acknowledge it, even they owe to its in¬ 
direct influence, in no small degree, their preser¬ 
vation from those more flagrant iniquities into 
which their system by itself would infallibly plunge 
them, and their possession of those amiable and 
respectable qualities which their system by itself 
has not the remotest tendency to foster. And as 
to human laws, of whose superiority they have 
boasted so much, they forget two things, which it 
is of great consequence to remember. They for¬ 
get that the best human laws have been founded 
on Christian principles, and have appealed to the 
authority and sanctions of the Christian religion 
for their enactment and their execution, and have 
been indebted for much of their efficacy to the 
sense of religious obligation previously existing 
in the public mind. And they also forget that 
human virtue does not wholly result from the ab¬ 
sence of crime, or consist in that state of conduct 
which is produced by the mere terror of penal in¬ 
flictions ; but that a great proportion of it is made 


SERMON III. 


65 

up of feelings and actions, which human laws are 
neither competent nor intended to govern, and 
which it is the prerogative of religion alone to 
generate, to foster, and to diffuse. 

If our adversaries refer to the commission of 
great crimes, they have not gained their point; for 
great crimes do not make up the hundredth part of 
the immorality that abounds in the world. Even 
in this limited view, however, they are quite mis¬ 
taken. We doubt not that the fear of ignomini¬ 
ous and capital punishments from the hands of 
men prevents many heinous offences. But we 
hold that religion does the very same thing in an 
infinitely greater number of cases: for it reaches 
incalculably farther than human laws can possibly 
do. The hope of escape in cases of privacy, for 
example, may render the latter comparatively in¬ 
efficient, but it is in the very nature of the for¬ 
mer to forbid the formation or encouragement 
of such a hope. Besides, religion carries its in¬ 
fluence to the heart, “ out of which are the issues 
of life,” and to all the multitude of petty actions 
of which the great mass of character is composed. 
And who can tell the effect which this influence, 
secret and unperceived, but not the less real and 
powerful, may produce in arresting the progress of 
vice in individuals towards the perpetration of ag¬ 
gravated and fatal guilt? Speculative and philoso¬ 
phic infidels may not see this, or they may not think 
of it: but it is true notwithstanding. The remark is 
coeval with society, that no man is greatly wicked 
at once. And it is the exclusive office of religion 
to check and crush, in the very bud, those vicious 
propensities, which, if indulged in, (and human 


66 


SERMON III. 


laws cannot prevent their indulgence,) will at 
length issue in such deadly offences as alone come 
under the cognizance of human enactments and 
the lash of human punishments. An illustration 
of this may be found in the confessions and histo¬ 
ry of almost all those who have forfeited their 
lives to the justice of the laws. They began their 
course by losing sight of religious truth and reli¬ 
gious ordinances. Having banished these from 
their minds and from their practice, they became 
a prey to every allurement. And from one evil 
habit they proceeded to another, till the fear of 
God was entirely gone—till practical infidelity 
had established its dominion over them, and the 
denunciations of imprisonment, and exile, and 
death, from the laws of man, had failed to arrest 
them in their career of violence and of guilt. 

O, but it is urged upon us, that immorality is 
not always characteristic of infidels ; that many of 
them are eminent for personal virtue, and for all 
the decencies and charities of domestic and social 
life ; and that this has happened even with such 
of them as have been most unreserved and most 
unbounded in their scepticism. In one sense, 
this may be all true ; and yet it is very little to 
the purpose. We have never denied that some 
such exceptions are to be met with. But we 
maintain, that they are only exceptions—that they 
are comparatively few—and that they are owing 
to circumstances which do not generally exist. 
They may be found in the case of such as are 
of cool and sedate temperaments—of such as have 
recluse and studious habits—of such as have no 
occasion to encounter the more powerful tempta- 


SERMON III. 


67 


tions of the world—of such as have certain prin¬ 
ciples and motives peculiar to their situation, 
which forbid them to do any thing outrageously 
wicked. And in all these cases, it is quite fair to 
suppose that the very Christianity which they 
have discarded, and are endeavoring to destroy, 
may, by its surrounding prevalence, and its imper¬ 
ceptible efficacy, help to preserve them from those 
flagrant vices, which infidelity, to say the least of 
it, does not discountenance or prohibit. But look 
to the workings of infidelity on the great mass of 
mankind—of those by whom it has been either 
paitially or wholly embraced. Look to its ef¬ 
fects on the young, who are naturally heedless and 
impetuous ;—on those who are exposed to many 
snares and excitements ;—on those who are des¬ 
titute of the advantages of education ;—on those 
who are not in a situation to be controlled by 
public opinion ;—on those who are away from 
the sphere in which the light and purity of 
Christian doctrine may be felt:—look to its effects 
on these, and you cannot for a moment hesitate to 
admit its demoralizing tendency ;—-you must per¬ 
ceive, as by demonstration, that it is the “ enemy 
of all righteousness,” and that, wherever it goes, 
it may be expected to carry along with it a black 
and formidable catalogue of crimes. 

But we must not be told, even of the infidel 
philosophers, that because they have not plunged 
into all the grossness of vice, they are therefore 
to be quoted as instances of the moral harmless¬ 
ness of their system. They may be as free from 
heinous sins as the very purest of Christ’s disci¬ 
ples—they may be just, temperate, honorable— 


SERMON III. 


68 


they may practise all the honesties and all the 
kindnesses of common life,—and yet, in the very 
announcement of their unbelief, they indicate a 
deep-rooted hatred or wanton disregard of virtue, 
which nothing that they themselves profess, or 
that their warmest friends can say for them, will 
either palliate or disguise. The most celebrated 
of their number have unequivocally confessed the 
importance of religion to the moral welfare of 
mankind. But in the very face of this acknowl¬ 
edgement, they have not scrupled to disseminate 
their opinions against it as widely and as industri¬ 
ously as they could. He who, in point of talent 
and personal amiableness, may be considered as 
standing at their head, and of whoih another said 
that he came as near as possible to the idea of “ a 
perfectly wise and virtuous man,” thus expressed 
himself, in speaking of its being unpliilosophical 
to suppose that the Deity will inflict punishments 
on vice, and bestow rewards on virtue, beyond 
what appears in the ordinary course of nature: 
“ Whether this reasoning of theirs be just or not, 
is no matter; its influence on their life and con¬ 
duct must still be the same ; and those who at¬ 
tempt to disabuse them of such prejudices, may, 
for ought I know, be good reasoners, but I cannot 
allow them to be good citizens and politicians, 
since they free men from one restraint upon their 
passions, and make the infringement of the laws 
of equity and society in one respect more easy 
and secure.” Such was his recorded language; 
and what was his conduct? Why, to publish the 
very thing whose tendency he allowed to be un¬ 
friendly to the interests of morality, and to labor 


SERMON III. 


69 


with all his genius, and eloquence, and might, to 
undermine every religious principle that goes to 
restrain the violence of the wicked, and encour¬ 
age the virtues of the good. Could there be any 
love here to good morals ?—any virtue in the 
heart ?—any thing but indifference or aversion to 
its prevalence in the world ? No, my friends ; we 
may as well say that the man is not guilty of mur¬ 
der, who has a fatal poison in his possession, but 
who, instead of taking it himself, circulates it 
through every corner of the land, while he knows, 
and believes, and confesses, that it is to slay its 
thousands and its tens of thousands of unsuspect¬ 
ing mortals.—So much for the morality of infidel 
philosophers, and so much for the wisdom and the 
virtue of their “ perfectly wise and virtuous men!” 

Now, if it be true that infidelity is, in its natur¬ 
al and direct tendency, detrimental to the mdtality 
of all who imbibe its principles ; if this be the ef¬ 
fect which it has more or less produced, wherev¬ 
er it has acquired the ascendency; if its connex¬ 
ion with vice be such as that you must always ex¬ 
pect the one where you find the other,—then in 
proportion to the sincerity with which you are at¬ 
tached to moral purity and moral rectitude, will be 
the aversion that you feel and exhibit to every 
system of infidelity. Every degree of importance 
that you attach to the prevalence of good morals— 
every argument which helps to convince you that 
these are endangered by the rejection of Christi¬ 
anity—and every instance of their actual deterio¬ 
ration under the operation of such a cause, must 
determine and increase your opposition to those 
maxims which go to represent the gospel as a fa- 


70 


SERMON III. 


ble, and to overturn the dominion of religious be¬ 
lief. And, convinced that the greatest enemies 
of human virtue are to be found in those who, 
whether from wantonness or from design, would 
persuade men that revelation is false, you will eye 
all their attempts with the utmost jealousy and 
alarm, you will resist these with unbending firm¬ 
ness, and you will regard them as so many motives 
for more strenuous efforts to “ build yourselves 
up in your most holy faith,” and to contend ear¬ 
nestly for its stability and its influence in the 
world. 


SERMON IV. 


SAME TEXT. 

In' our last discourse we endeavored to show 
that infidelity is in every respect hostile to the in¬ 
terests of morality. We are now to illustrate the 
proposition that Infidelity is destructive of the com¬ 
fort and the happiness of those who embrace it. 

Whatever may be alleged to the contrary, it is 
quite true in point of fact, that virtue and vice 
severally lead to happiness and misery. Particu¬ 
lar circumstances may occur to counteract or to 
modify this tendency j and sometimes the real 
condition and experience of those whom it affects 
may be so carefully concealed, that its workings 
are not visible to the most careful observer. But 
still it gives so many and such striking demonstra¬ 
tions of itself, as to leave us no room foif doubting 
that it is a general law to which human nature is 
subject amidst all the diversified circumstances 
in which it is placed. And it is a law which op- 


72 


SERMON IV. 


erates equally on individuals, and on families, and 
on nations ; so that wherever we find the great¬ 
est freedom from unhallowed indulgence and the 
strictest observance of the moral law, there do we 
find the highest degree of private enjoyment, of 
domestic peace, and of public prosperity. And 
on the other hand, we never fail almost to see the 
commission of sin accompanied by pain and 
wretchedness, in a measure proportioned to its 
heinousness and extent, and inflicting injury, more 
or less, on the health, the fortune, the reputation, 
the thousand different sources from which men 
are accustomed to derive the gratifications and de¬ 
lights of the present life. 

Now, if the reasoning was sound and conclusive 
by which we attempted to establish the immoral 
effects of infidelity, this odious system must of 
course be chargeable with no inconsiderable pro¬ 
portion of that misery which unholy conduct so 
largely and so certainly produces. And, indeed, 
my friends, if you consider the subject closely, 
and take an accurate survey of what passes in the 
world beside you and around you, it must be obvi¬ 
ous to you, in the first place, that the most painful 
and most inveterate of those evils which break in 
upon the harmony and satisfaction of human life, 
proceed more immediately or more remotely, in 
one shape or another, from the prevalence of sin 
in its manifold varieties: And it must be obvious 
to you, in the second place, that every act of ini¬ 
quity, whether committed by the systematic infidel 
or by the nominal Christian, may be traced (ulti¬ 
mately to the “ evil heart of unbelief” in the per¬ 
son committing it, who, having never possessed at 


SERMON IV. 


73 


all or having lost for the time, the fear of Al¬ 
mighty God, is thereby prepared for every crimin¬ 
al act, to which interest may allure, or to which 
passion may impel. Hence a vast multitude of 
those disquietudes and distresses which you every 
day behold, and which you either never think of ac¬ 
counting for, or which you so readily ascribe to mere 
accident, may be ascertained, by a very simple 
process of induction, to be the legitimate offspring 
of scepticism and infidelity. This is best per¬ 
ceived, indeed, in cases of extreme profligacy, 
which are by no means uncommon: but a minute 
inquiry will also make it manifest to you, in ten 
thousand instances which would otherwise have 
escaped your notice, although they afford just as 
real proofs as the other, of.the mischievous effect 
of infidelity upon humalu happiness, and may be 
considered, indeed, as even more convincing, be¬ 
cause they are continually occurring, and may be 
every where discovered. 

But infidelity operates still more directly in im¬ 
pairing or destroying our comfort. It implies the 
negation of all those truths which tend most ef¬ 
fectually to support and to cheer us under the ca¬ 
lamities of our lot. Even in the midst of prosper¬ 
ity, the doctrines which it teaches us to reject are 
calculated to elevate our minds and to increase 
our joy. We partake of the blessings of life with 
a far purer and a far higher relish, when we re¬ 
gard them as bestowed by the hand of an all-per¬ 
fect God, and when we receive them through the 
channel of a mercy secured to us by the media¬ 
tion of his own Son, and when we contemplate 
them as pledges and foretastes of that “ fulness 

i 


74 


SERMON IV. 


of joy” which remains for us “ at his right hand” 
in heaven. And that which deprives us of this di¬ 
vine relish, must so far be deemed inimical to us, 
as abridging our happiness, which at the best is 
but mixed and circumscribed. But such is the ef¬ 
fect of infidelity, whose baneful touch withers the 
charm of every earthly blessing, reduces it to the 
degraded level of a mere animal gratification, and 
leaves us to feed upon it like the beasts that per¬ 
ish, without a thought that rises above the dust, 
and without a hope that points beyond the grave. 

It is, however, amidst trials and sorrows, that 
infidelity appears in its justest and most frightful 
aspect. When subjected to the multifarious ills 
which flesh is heir to, what is there to uphold our 
spirit, but the discoveries and the prospects that 
are unfolded to us by revelation ? What, for this 
purpose, can be compared with the belief that ev¬ 
ery thing here below is under the management of 
infinite wisdom and goodness, and that there is an 
immortality of bliss awaiting us in another world ? 
If this conviction be taken away, what is it that 
we can have recourse to, on which the mind may 
patiently and safely repose in the season of ad¬ 
versity ? Where is the balm which I may apply 
with effect to my wounded heart, after I have re¬ 
jected the aid of the Almighty physician ? Impose 
upon me whatever hardships you please ; give me 
nothing but the bread of .sorrow to eat; take from 
me the friends in whom I had placed my confi¬ 
dence ; lay me in the cold hut of poverty, and on 
the thorny bed of disease ; set death before me 
in all its terrors ; do all this,—only let me trust in 
my Saviour, and “pillow my head on the bosom of 
omnipotence and I will “ fear no evil,”—I will 


SERMON IV. 


75 


rise superior to affliction,—I will “ rejoice in my 
tribulation.” But let infidelity interpose between 
God and my soul, and draw its impenetrable veil 
over a future state of existence, and limit all my 
trust to the creatures of a day, and all my expec¬ 
tations to a few years as uncertain as they are 
short; and how shall I bear up, with fortitude or 
with cheerfulness, under the burden of distress ? 
Or, where shall I find one drop of consolation, to 
put into the bitter draught which has been given 
me to drink ? I look over the whole range of 
this wilderness in which I dwell, but I see not 
one covert from the storm, nor one leaf for the 
healing of my soul, nor one cup of cold water to 
refresh me in the weariness and the faintings of 
my pilgrimage. O ! what can I be but comfortless 
and wretched, when I am without Christ, without 
God, and without hope ? 

My friends, you cannot be in affliction,—you 
cannot suppose yourselves to be in affliction, with¬ 
out feeling that infidelity is destructive of your 
only solid comfort. It may be true, that as infi¬ 
dels have their pleasures while life is prosperous 
with them, so there may be many circumstances 
which tend to mitigate their sorrows under the 
pressure of adversity. But their principles shut 
them out from the best and highest consolations 
which the human mind can have recourse to 
amidst its multiplied distresses, and are peculiar¬ 
ly calculated indeed to aggravate the most painful 
and most inevitable of those evils to which hu¬ 
manity is liable. 

I might say to one of you, You see death ap¬ 
proaching ; but you are prepored for the event, 


76 


SERMON IV. 


from which nature so instinctively recoils, by liv¬ 
ing like a Christian, in the faith and the hope of 
the Gospel,—in the faith, which reposes on a 
mighty Savionr, and in the hope which “ enters 
into that within the veiland under the power¬ 
ful influence of these principles you are not only 
tranquil, but triumphant. But the infidel would 
rob you at once of your tranquillity and your tri¬ 
umph, and cast a shade of annihilation over the 
glory that is now before you, and plunge you into 
the gulf of darkness and despair. 

I might say to another, You have an only 
child, endeared to you by every Christian virtue 
and by every filial affection. A hopeless disease 
has begun its ravages on his frame. The tie 
which has hitherto united your heart to his, and 
from which your sweetest earthly comforts have 
flowed, is about to be dissolved. You feel as if 
your own existence were drawing to its close. 
And yet your spirit does not sink under the sore 
calamity. It is « cast down, but not destroyed.” 
You see the child of your bosom ripe for the im¬ 
mortality on which his own hopes had been early 
placed, and you anticipate, through the mercy of 
your God, and the merits of your Saviour, a 
blessed and indissoluble reunion with him in the 
regions of everlasting light, and life, and glory. 
But the infidel would tear up all your anticipations 
by the root; he would persuade you that the vir¬ 
tues and the hopes of your child are equally vain ; 
he would make you bury every consolatory expec¬ 
tation in the grave where you are to lay him, and 
either cause a parent’s tears to flow for ever, or 


SERMON IV. 


77 


steel a parent’s heart against all the best and ten- 
derest sympathies of nature. 

I might say to a third, You are about to die, 
and to leave your wife and your family amidst the 
difficulties, the snares, and the sorrows of that 
world, from which you are ready to depart for ev¬ 
er. Bitter is the pang of separation. But you are 
comforted when you think of Him who rules over 
the affairs of men; who takes care of all who are 
committed to him in the confidence of faith ; who 
spreads his protecting wings over the fiithful that 
are cast, destitute and forlorn, upon his bounty ; 
and who says to the dying saint, “ Leave thy fa¬ 
therless children, I will preserve them alive, and 
let thy widow trust in me.” But the infidel would 
embitter your last hour; he would wring your bo¬ 
som with the most poignant distress, at the very 
moment that you stand most in need of consola¬ 
tion ; and he would do this by telling you, that 
when you trust your nearest and dearest friends to 
Providence, you indulge in a foolish delusion,— 
that they must lie at the ipercy of a fatherless, for¬ 
saken, and ungoverned world,—that vain is every 
prayer that you put up for them, and vain every 
hope that you cherish for them, in your departing 
moments. 

I might say to all of you, As you pass through 
the vale of tears, you meet with much to pain and 
distress you. Disappointments, losses, sickness, 
calumny, persecution, ingratitude, treachery, a 
thousand ills beset your path, giving you wearisome 
days and sleepless nights, and sometimes filling 
your souls with indescribable anguish. Amidst 
them all, though you may not be so presumptuous 

i 2 


78 


SEllMOS IV. 


as to say that “patience has had its perfect work , 11 
yet you have been comforted and upheld by what 
Christianity tells you of the origin, the design, and 
the end of your afflictions. It tells you that they 
originate in the appointment of a Being infinitely 
wise, holy, powerful, and good ; that their design is 
to promote your best interests, and that their end 
is an “ exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 
But the infidel would have you to ascribe them to 
unmeaning chance or to relentless fate ; he would 
take away from them the character of a wise and 
salutary discipline ; he would teach you to regard 
them as proofs that we live in a chaos of good and 
evil, over which no benignant intelligence pre¬ 
sides ; and when you look forward to another state, 
where all that is now mysterious in your afflictions 
shall be satisfactorily explained, and all that is 
now sad in your condition shall be exchanged for 
endless bliss, he would convince you that such a 
consummation is but the vision of poetry or of su¬ 
perstition, and that if death must be represented 
under the pleasing image of a sleep, it is a sleep 
from which you are never, never to awake. 

Now, in circumstances such as I have supposed, 
what is the aspect which infidelity wears ? Is it 
that of a friend, or of a foe ? Is there one pang 
which it alleviates, or one comfort which it brings ? 
Or rather, does it not aggravate every affliction a 
thousand fold, and render it insupportable and over¬ 
whelming ? Is not this its obvious tendency ? Is 
not this its common effect ? 

It is easy, indeed, to deride or disregard all this, 
when no calamity is felt or seen. In health and 
prosperity the consoling power of religion is not 


SERMON IV. 


79 


so much needed ; its value is not so readily prized 5 
its necessity is not so fully acknowledged. And 
those who are free from bodily distress and un¬ 
touched by outward misfortune—who are wallow¬ 
ing in wealth and pleasure, and never allow their 
eyes to settle on a scene of misery, or their ears 
to listen to a tale of woe from which they can 
turn away, may flatter themselves that there is 
hot much occasion for comfort, and that, therefore, 
infidelity, in this respect, cannot do much harm. 
But take a more extended view of human life ; 
think of the frailty of man, the dangers to which 
he is exposed, the misfortunes to which he is lia¬ 
ble ; remember the days of his darkness, which 
experience testifies to be many and evil; leave 
the house of feasting, and visit the house of mourn¬ 
ing ; enter the dwellings of the poor, who are 
struggling with the united hardships of indigence 
and sickness; go to the chamber of disease, and 
see its victim, after having suffered for years, still 
looking forward to years of suffering more; be¬ 
hold the dying parent surrounded with his desti¬ 
tute weeping family, and regarding them with 
looks that would melt a heart of stone ; and say, 
without affectation or reserve, whether would you 
send to them the Christian or the infidel; wheth¬ 
er would you address to them the language of 
faith or of unbelief; whether would you tell them 
that they are under the administration of a wise 
and gracious God, and that their distresses shall 
be made to u work together for their good,” and 
that there is a land of rest, an unsuffering king¬ 
dom, an everlasting habitation, into which the 
1 3 


80 


SERMON IV. 


faithful shall be ere long introduced,—or, that 
there is no God who concerns himself about their 
fate ; no benevolent intention in the afflictions to 
which they are subjected; no joy in which their 
sorrows are to terminate ; no immortality to en¬ 
lighten the dark “valley of the shadow of death?” 
There is but one answer that the heart of the 
most careless and the most hardened of you will 
allow you to give. And having given it, and 
borne your testimony to the truth, go back again, 
if you will, to the gaieties and the pleasures of 
the world, but never repeat the assertion—never 
harbour the thought, that infidelity is any thing 
else than a stern, relentless enemy to the comfort 
of man, who is “ born to trouble as the sparks fly 
upward.” 

And are we to forget, amidst our contempla¬ 
tions, the horrors and the distresses of a guilty 
conscience? No, my friends, in spite of all the 
attempts that are made, and all the ingenuity that 
is exercised, to efface the impressions of a God, 
who has given a law for the regulation of our 
conduct, and who will “judge the world in right¬ 
eousness,” moments will occur when the sinner 
shall be filled with “ the terrors of the Lord,” and 
unable to shake off the consciousness of trans¬ 
gression, and the fear of punishment. In these 
awful moments, religion has the power of speak¬ 
ing peace to him,—“ a peace, too, which passeth 
understanding.” It tells him that the God whom 
he has offended is a merciful God. It tells him 
of one who i3 “mighty and kble to save him to 
the very uttermost.” It discloses to him a re- 


SERMON IV. 


81 


demption suited to all his need. It invites him to 
partake of it “ without money and without price.” 
And it inspires him with the hope that is “full of 
immortality.” But mark the cruelty and the base¬ 
ness of infidelity to an awakened sinner. After it 
has encouraged him in his crimes,—after it has 
prompted and seduced him to those indulgences 
which now fill him with compunction and sorrow, 
it would abandon him to the misery in which it 
has involved him. It has not succeeded in effec¬ 
tually convincing him that there is no God, and no 
retribution, and in preventing him from feeling the 
the agonies of remorse, and the apprehensions of 
divine wrath; but it has banished from his creed 
all that could have soothed those agonies, and re¬ 
moved these apprehensions ; it has blotted out the 
very name of a Saviour from the tablet of his 
heart; it has formed a great gulf between him 
and the throne of mercy, over which his prayers 
and his hopes can never pass; it makes a mock of 
his wretchedness, and leaves him to perish in de¬ 
spair. 

The very conduct of infidels in spreading their 
system with so much eagerness and industry, af¬ 
fords a striking proof that its influence is essen¬ 
tially hostile to human happiness. For what is 
their conduct ? Why, they allow that religion 
contributes largely to the comfort of man,—that, 
in this respect, as well as with respect to morali¬ 
ty, it would be a great evil were it to lose its 
hold over their affections,—and that those are no 
friends to the world who would shake or destroy 
their belief in it. And yet, in the very face of 
this acknowledgement, they scruple not to publish 
i 4 


S E R M O N I v. 


82 

their doubts and their unbelief concerning it 
among their fellow men, and with all the cool de¬ 
liberation of philosophy, and sometimes with all 
the keenness and ardor of a zealot, to do the very 
thing which they profess to deprecate as perni¬ 
cious to the well-being and comfort of the species. 
Whether they are sincere in this profession, or 
whether they are only trifling with the sense and 
feeling of mankind, still it demonstrates the har¬ 
dening influence of their principles; and from 
principles, Avhich make those who hold them so 
reckless of the peace, and order, and happiness of 
their brethren, what can be reasonably expected, 
but every thing which is most destructive of hu¬ 
man comfort ? 

It is true the infidel may be very humane in 
the intercourse of life ; but, after all, what de¬ 
pendence can be placed upon that humanity of 
his, which deals out bread to the hungry, and 
clothing to the naked, and yet would sacrifice to 
literary vanity, or to something worse, whatever 
can give support in trial, and consolation at death ? 
He may sympathize with me in my distress, and 
speak to me of immortality, and at the very mo¬ 
ment, his constitutional kindness may be triumph¬ 
ing over his cold-blooded and gloomy specula¬ 
tions. But his speculations have shed a misery 
over my heart, which no language of his can dis¬ 
sipate, and which makes his most affectionate 
words sound in my ear like the words of mockery 
and scorn. He has destroyed me, and he cannot 
save me, and he cannot comfort me. At his 
bidding, I have renounced that Saviour in whom 
I once trusted, and was happy, and have banish- 


SERMON IV, 


83 


ed that Comforter, who once dwelt with me, and 
would have dwelt with me as a comforter forever. 
And he now pities me, as if his most pitying tones 
could charm away the anguish of my bosom, and 
make me forget that it was he himself who plant¬ 
ed it there, and planted it so deep, and nourish¬ 
ed it so well, that nothing but the power of that 
heaven, whose power I have denied, is able to 
pluck it out. Yes, after he has destroyed my be¬ 
lief in the superintending providence of God,— 
after he has taught me that the prospect of a 
hereafter is but the baseless fabric of a vision,— 
after he has bred and nourished in me a contempt 
for that sacred volume which alone throws light 
over this benighted world,—after having cheated 
me out of my faith by his sophistries, or laughed 
me out of it by his ridicule,—after having thus 
wrung from my soul every drop of consolation, 
and dried up my very spirit within me,—yes, 
after having accomplished this in the season of 
iny health and my prosperity, he would come to 
me while I mourn, and treat me like a drivelling 
idiot, whom he may sport with, because he has 
ruined me, and to whom, in the plenitude of his 
compassion,—too late, and too unavailing,—he 
may talk of truths in which he himself does not 
believe, and which he has long exhorted me, and 
has at last persuaded me, to cast away as the 
dreams and the delusions of human folly!— 
From such comforters may heaven preserve me ! 
“My soul, come not thou into their secret. Unto 
their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!” 

Thus have we considered the evil effects of in¬ 
fidelity on the morals and comfort of those who 


84 


SERMON IV. 


embrace it, or submit to its influence. We do 
not mean to afflrm, indeed, that this of itself is a 
valid argument against infidelity, or that religion 
is to be admitted as true, merely because it is 
more beneficial. We have better reasons than 
this for abiding by Christianity; and, of course, 
more conclusive objections against the system of 
.unbelief. But as we have so much to urge in 
favour of our faith,—as we have so many and 
such powerful evidences to support it,—then, 
whenever the question comes to be, whether we 
shall hold it fast or throw it away, I see nothing 
either irrational or unphilosophical in allowing 
that view of the subject which we have been tak¬ 
ing to determine us against infidelity. Granting 
that the two sides of the controversy were in other 
respects equally balanced, that which is most to 
our real advantage should have the preference. 
An infidel writer has said, that “ undoubtedly in 
our travels to the other world, the common road is 
the safest.” And his remark is abundantly sound. 
We should rather he wrong with the Christian, 
than right with the infidel. Much better surely 
to take our chance of finding the Gospel false, 
than run the risk of finding it true. Our system 
has this at least to recommend it, that it contri¬ 
butes essentially, and contributes largely, to the 
virtue and happiness of the world. And when 
death comes, as come to all of us it will, if there 
be nothing after it, the ashes of the infidel will 
not repose more quietly than ours. And if there 
be a righteous and eternal retribution, O how un¬ 
wise his calculation, how severe his disappoint¬ 
ment, how awful and irremediable his fate ! 


SERMON IV. 


86 


But we rest not our cause upon such dubious 
ground as this. We believe in the truth of our 
holy religion, because it has been proved by evi¬ 
dence the most ample and satisfactory. And we 
adduce the immoral and comfortless tendency of 
infidelity, to show that we have something valua¬ 
ble to contend for, when we set ourselves against 
its encroachments, and good reason to call upon 
you to listen with caution and with jealousy to 
the objections which its advocates state so dog¬ 
matically, and urge so strenuously, against the 
religion of Christ. 

In fact, too little attention is paid to its conse¬ 
quences. We read the books which contain it, 
and regard them as curious abstract speculations, 
which display acute and subtle talents, and pro¬ 
voke us to give some ingenious reasoning in re¬ 
turn. We meet with those by whom it is main¬ 
tained, and in the brilliancy of their wit, or the 
agreeableness of their manners, or the extent of 
their information, we forget that they are unbe¬ 
lievers, or that their unbelief has any malignant 
influence. We see, and we admire, and we ap¬ 
plaud the services which they render to the cause 
of science, or to the ca’ise of humanity, and 
dream not, that from the same fountain which 
has enlarged the boundaries of learning and of 
knowledge, there can flow a stream so foul and 
so devouring as that of infidelity. 

Now, to break this delusion, natural enough, 
but incalculably pernicious, I say, look to the 
consequences of infidelity. See how it covers the 
scene of human life with all the abominations of 
licentiousness and crime: and how, while it de- 


86 


SERMON IV. 


stroys the present comforts, it darkens and deso¬ 
lates all the future prospects of our species. 
Witness its frightful doings, not merely in the 
higher classes of society, where its hideousness 
and its mischief are moderated by the influence of 
superior education, or glossed over by the elegan¬ 
ces of polished life; but in every inferior condi¬ 
tion, down to the lowest and the neediest of the 
people, among whom it assumes its most forbidding 
aspect, and produces its most cruel and most ruin¬ 
ous effects. If you go into a poor man’s cottage, 
for instance, you may perhaps see vice and misery 
reigning in it, and it may not occur to you that 
his evils are the direct and legitimate offspring of 
infidelity. He may not know very distinctly what 
infidelity is, or be able to speak about it with un¬ 
derstanding. But after all, you may find that he 
is its victim; that he has been brought into his 
wicked course by the influence of example; and 
that the criminal example, to which he owes his 
guilt and his ruin, has resulted solely from a re¬ 
jection of the Christian faith. Nay, you may be 
able to trace it to the interference of another, as 
poor as himself, who had discovered by the help 
of his superiors, that the Gospel is a fable, and 
who, unwilling to limit the knowledge *or the ben¬ 
efit of such a discovery, had plied him, among 
others, with the consideration of its importance, 
and its happy bearings on his conduct and con¬ 
dition, till he had prevailed upon him to become 
as unbelieving as himself; and for a doctrine that 
gives full play to his strongest passions, and un¬ 
bounded latitude to his political dissatisfactions, 
to renounce that which had hitherto oruided him 

O 


SERMON IV. 


87 


in the path of righteousness, and comforted him 
in the midst of his adversities, and brought con¬ 
tentment, and peace, and joy, to dwell under his 
humble roof. 

Infidelity is not confined to books of philoso¬ 
phy or to men of learning. It does not slumber 
on the shelves of an inaccessible library, or lie 
concealed in disquisitions which are intelligible 
to none but scientific adepts. It once bore this 
stately and secluded character ; but it bears it no 
longer. It has become more condescending, more 
open, and more active. There is a kind of it which 
itinerates through our cities, and our villages, our 
market-places, and our workshops. It is not ac¬ 
companied by the subtleties of metaphysical lan¬ 
guage, and does not carry along with it the rea¬ 
sons or arguments that you find in the works of 
Bolingbroke and Hume : But it moves in all the 
various forms of artful objections, and profane 
maxims, and significant sneers, and vulgar wit. 

It is divested of those refinements with which 
taste, and ingenuity, and eloquence, had clothed * 
it in the pages of the man of literature or science : 

But it is not less substantia], it is not less malig¬ 
nant, it is not less destructive of all that is fair, 
and good, and happy, in the world. And where- 
ever it finds its way, and holds its dominion, there 
does it invariably degrade the character, and wan¬ 
ton with the miseries of those whom it has seduced 
and enslaved. 

As, then, you tender your own welfare, and 
would promote the welfare of your fellow-men, 

“ take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil 
heart of unbelief.” Let infidelity be the object 


88 


5EIU10 N I V . 


of your decided and interminable abhorrence, 
and let Christianity, to which it stands in frown¬ 
ing- and everlasting opposition, be the object of 
your highest reverence and your most cordial at¬ 
tachment. Be jealous, and guarded and resolute, 
when the unbeliever is throwing out his jests at 
its doctrines, or wielding his objections against 
its credibility. Surely it becomes you to pause 
long, and to ponder well, before you consent to 
abjure or to think lightly of a system which has 
been of such unspeakable benefit to multitudes 
of human beings, and the renunciation of which 
would bring along with it evils, the most disastrous 
and irremediable that ever befel the children of 
men. Surely you will not rashly abandon those 
prospects which it has set before you, and by 
which it has cheered you in adversity, and makes 
you anticipate eternity with triumph; nor will 
you listen with a willing ear to the ridicule with 
which its enemies have assailed it, oir to the in¬ 
genious sophistry with which they try to perplex 
its evidences, or even to the grave arguments by 
which they endeavor to overthrow its credit, 
and to bring all the mischiefs of irreligion on this 
already too dark, and too thoughtless, and too 
miserable world. Surely you will be more true 
to yourselves, and more faithful and more mer¬ 
ciful to your brethren, than to exchange, without 
the maturest deliberation, the source of so much 
purity, and so much comfort, for that which would 
first abandon you to a life without God, and then 
to a death without hope. 

And if you are enlightened to see the infinite 
evil of infidelity, I trust that you will set your- 


SERMON IV. 


89 


selves to discourage it, and bear it down by all 
the influence which God has given you. If you 
are men of intellectual power ; if you are invest¬ 
ed with official authority; if you are placed in 
elevated stations; if you are teachers, or masters, 
or parents, to whom the youth of our country are 
looking up for instruction and guidance ; then 
you are under peculiar obligations to resist it with 
united energy; and these obligations I call upon 
you, by all that is sacred, to.fulfil. Nor let any 
man imagine, however humble his condition, how¬ 
ever mean his talents, however limited his sphere 
of activity, that he is incapable of being useful, 
and that he is consequently exempted from the 
warfare which must be waged against this enemy 
of the peace and righteousness cf the world. No, 
my friends, you have your wholesome counsels, 
and your good conversation, and your holy con¬ 
duct, and your fervent prayers, and your spiritual 
charities; and these are instruments, “ mighty 
through God, to the pulling down of its strongest 
holds,” and to the frustrating of its most artful 
machinations; and it is incumbent on you to em¬ 
ploy them with vigor and perseverance, that you 
may do your part in saving our race from an evil, 
infinitely worse than the “ pestilence that walketh 
in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at 
noon-day.” 


• , 

















' 




SERMON V. 


SAME TEXT. 

The term “unbelief” is of general import. And 
our opinion of the person ©f whom it is predicat¬ 
ed, usually depends upon the object to which his 
unbelief attaches. We can suppose him reject¬ 
ing only some particular doctrine of revelation: 
Or we can suppose him rejecting the Christian 
revelation itself: Or we can suppose him reject¬ 
ing every thing that goes under the comprehen¬ 
sive name of religion. We can suppose all this ; 
and the common notion is, that it is frequently re¬ 
alized. Nay, this scale of unbelief is still more 
minutely graduated. There are, between the two 
extremes, points of greater and points of less im¬ 
portance, in almost infinite variety; and whoever 
rejects any one of them, with which the idea of 
sacredness has been associated, is so far an un¬ 
believer, and so far departs from the living God. 
But we are accustomed to estimate the demerit of 


K 


92 


SERMON V. 


his unbelief by the precise article upon which it 
is fixed. Our aversion to him on account of that 
quality may in one case be slight, and in another 
strong, and in another total and unqualified. And 
where we know merely that there is something 
which he will not receive, without knowing what 
it is, and without being aware of its degree of rel¬ 
ative importance, we commonly rest satisfied that 
there is nothing about which we need to be much 
concerned. 

Now, we apprehend, that for these distinctions 
in unbelief, there is not the foundation in truth 
which is usually imagined. They exist rather in 
profession and in appearance than in reality. 
They are all modifications of the same great evil, 
and expressions of the same radical principle. 
And although, on a superficial and inexperienced 
view, there may seem to be a wide difference sub¬ 
sisting among them, they are cherished by one 
common spirit, as they are distinguished by one 
common character; the transition from the least 
considerable to the most offensive of them,.is nei¬ 
ther rare nor difficult ; and when this transition 
does net actually take place, it may always be 
traced to adventitious causes, and may be consid¬ 
ered as nothing more than a mere accidental ex¬ 
ception to the natural operation and progress of 
unbelief. 

By following out this idea, and by judging of 
men, not according to what they seem, or profess, 
or think themselves to be, but according to the 
more correct and searching tests with which their 
conduct furnishes us for ascertaining their real 
state and character, we shall find that there are 


SERMON V. 


93 


many to whom the charge of an evil heart of un¬ 
belief most justly applies, although they would 
indignantly spurn from them the reproach of in¬ 
fidelity, and would be considered by others as 
calumniated if such a thing were imputed to 
them. We shall adduce a few examples. 

1 . And, first, we mention those who reject one 
part of revelation, while they admit the rest,—as 
affording an appropriate illustration of our state¬ 
ment. 

With regard to such persons, it may be ob¬ 
served, that the very same reason which alone en¬ 
titles, and which alone determines them to believe 
it in general, should operate in making them be¬ 
lieve every particular article that it contains. And 
if they can bring themselves to set aside a single 
iota of that which is accredited by the direct tes¬ 
timony of God himself, we see nothing in the w r ay 
of evidence which should hinder them from dis¬ 
carding the whole of it, without ceremony and with¬ 
out reserve. By that solitary exception in making 
up their creed, however trifling it may be in relative 
importance, and however insignificant in its pract¬ 
ical effects, they have violated the principle of 
submission to the divine will, or they have denied 
tbe veracity of the divine character; and thus 
they have broken down the only substantial, per¬ 
manent and impassable barrier which opposed itself 
to their utter and undisguised rejection of God’s 
message. They may still hold by those doctrines 
on which we are accustomed to set the greatest 
value ; but the tenure which binds them to these 
is no longer of that sacred and commanding kind 
which secures unlimited acquiescence ; it no Ion- 


94 


SERMON V . 


ger resolves itself into the lofty and unbending 
maxim upon which, as creatures, they are ever 
bound to act, “that the Lord hath spoken itit 
is now converted into the brittle tie of human rea¬ 
son, and of human feeling, and lies at the mercy 
of the ten thousand influences which are con¬ 
stantly operating to pervert the one, or to corrupt 
the other. There is an inconsistency in their 
mode of proceeding of which they can scarcely 
fail to be conscious, which cannot be without its 
effect, whether they be conscious of it or not. It 
will either, on the one hand, be removed by their 
returning to the faith of that which they had set 
aside in the face of a divine testimony; or, on the 
other hand, if it be not altogether done away with, 
it will certainly be rendered more obvious and 
decisive, by the renunciation of such other truths 
as may be at war with their prejudices, their pas¬ 
sions, and their interests. And, as the evil heart 
of unbelief has been deliberately taken from un¬ 
der the control of that divine authority which was 
formerly acknowledged, and which has put its seal 
upon every page and every sentence of revelation, 
we can be at no great loss to ascertain which of 
these processes is most likely to be realized in 
their experience. Having once permitted a dis¬ 
regard or a defiance of any thing whatever which 
God has been pleased to communicate to them for 
their instruction or their guidance, to settle in 
their minds, they have entered on the path of in¬ 
fidelity, and all before them is a downward career, 
in which every successive step strengthens the 
inclination, and increases the facility of proceed¬ 
ing farther, till they arrive at that stage of degen- 


SERMON V . 


95 


eracy at which Christianity is proclaimed to be a 
cunning fable, and its law is denounced as an in¬ 
tolerable bondage. 

It will not do, as we have already hinted, to 
say that the particular point which they have dis¬ 
pensed with is of little moment, and that salva¬ 
tion may be attained without it. It may be of lit¬ 
tle moment, compared with other points that are 
to be found in Christianity; but it is not of little 
moment as a part of God’s communication, and as 
an intimation of his will, intended, as it must be, 
for our benefit, in some way or another. The 
single consideration of its coming from Him, is 
enough to constitute our obligation to receive it 
with humility, and to treat it with respect; and 
though other considerations may add to its impor¬ 
tance; that is the circumstance which gives it its 
great and primary importance as an object of faith. 
And as to its use in the matter of our salvation, it 
may not be absolutely indispensable for the ac¬ 
complishment of that end, and many may be sav¬ 
ed who have never known any thing about it; and 
yet that is no good reason for our suffering our¬ 
selves to cast it out of our creed, and for main¬ 
taining that, in spite of our deliberate refusal of 
this part of the divine record, we are not to be 
accused of having the “evil heart of unbelief.” 
The principle of unbelief may be at work in small 
things as well as in great things. And this I will 
be bold to say, that salvation is not likely to ac¬ 
company that faith, since faith it must be called, 
which takes exceptions against the wisdom of 
God, and uses its own freedom with his dispensa¬ 
tions, both because such treatment of him is itself 
k 2 


96 


SERMON V. 


a great sin, and because the spirit which it indi¬ 
cates must more or less affect the whole of the 
regards which are paid to the gospel scheme. 

But, besides this, the Avord importance , as used 
in this case, is a very ambiguous word, and the 
application actually made of it is such as would 
lead one to conclude that there is no great impor¬ 
tance in any one part of the Bible. One man says 
that the doctrine of our Saviour’s divinity is of no 
great importance ; and another says the same thing 
of the doctrine respecting the agency of the Holy 
Spirit; a third reiterates the assertion as to the a- 
tonement itself; and a fourth will even attach the 
stigma to good works. So that in this way, we see 
all that is essential to the gospel, whether it be 
considered as a plan of mercy or as a rule of du¬ 
ty, discarded on the principle we are speaking of; 
and this view of its application leads us to see the 
folly and the danger of acting upon it in any one 
particular whatever. The plain and obvious an¬ 
swer to such assumptions, independently of what 
might be said on the various truths alluded to as 
being of infinite moment, is this ; that these, and 
all the other positions with which they stand con¬ 
nected, are of importance as forming constituent 
parts of that revelation which the Almighty has 
vouchsafed to us, and that, though they could be 
demonstrated, as they never can, to possess far 
less importance than what we usually attach to 
them, or even though, in their own intrinsic na¬ 
ture, they were altogether destitute of it, it is of 
high and incalculable importance that we give cred¬ 
it to what the Lord has told us concerning them; 
and if we withhold that credit, if we refuse to give 


SERMON V . 


97 


it in its fullest extent, then, by rejecting 1 what the 
God of supreme authority, and of unerring truth, 
has declared, we afford the most unequivocal and 
undeniable proofs of our having the “ evil heart of 
unbelief.” 

These remarks are by no means intended to im¬ 
plicate those who merely do not embrace every 
thing that is propounded to them as the dictate of 
inspiration. They must be allowed to judge for 
themselves ; and if there be any tenet which they 
do not find in the word of God, though it has been 
discovered there by other men, they are not only 
entitled, but they are bound in conscience, to ex¬ 
clude it from their creed ; and to them, therefore, 
nothing that we have said has any legitimate ap¬ 
plication. 

We allude to those who withhold their assent 
from any portion of that which they yet receive 
as a divine revelation, or who, in making up a can¬ 
on of scripture, or in forming a system of reveal¬ 
ed truth for themselves, put away from them the 
least statement which does not agree with their 
own reasonings, or suit their own taste, without 
inquiring, and without minding, whether it has not, 
after all, the high and holy sanction of heaven. 
We affirm of such, that in spite of all the doc¬ 
trines which they profess to hold, they have given 
a decisive exhibition of the evil heart of unbelief; 
that having departed in one case from what the 
living God has told them, as if it were not true, 
they are prepared for departing from his testimo¬ 
ny as far as temptation may happen to carry them ; 
that the principle of faith in his declarations being 
k 3 


98 


SERMON V . 


thus set at nought, there is not a truth in the bi- 
ble which they can maintain upon the ground that 
it has him for its author; that, if they deny the 
depravity of human nature, for instance, while yet 
they must admit that it is taught in Scripture, they 
may just as well deny the mediation of Christ, 
and the influences of the Spirit, and the resurrec¬ 
tion of the dead, and every other statement in that 
volume of which the Almighty has said, “These 
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye 
might have life through his name.” And we 
would hold out this as a warning to all those who 
are in danger, or who are in the habit, of making 1 
free with any part of the word of God which does 
not happen to correspond with their conceptions 
of divine things, or which it is not very agreeable 
to their worldly feelings to make a part of their 
religious creed. They thus show that the evil 
heart of unbelief is still working in them; and if 
they thus yield, for any reason whatever, to its 
suggestion and guidance, it is impossible to say 
how far they may go in “ departing from the living 
God.” 

2. Another illustration of our statement is to 
be found in the case of those whose lives are char¬ 
acterized by impiety and immorality. 

It sometimes happens, that those who hold and 
profess the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, in¬ 
dulge in practices that are very different from 
what is required of them by the moral precepts of 
Christianity. And it as often happens that there 
are men who take advantage of this unworthy con- 


SERMON V . 


99 


duct, to depreciate the doctrinal views with which 
it is associated, and to deny the sincerity of the 
persons who maintain it. . We do not stand up for 
any thing so contradictory. We would condemn, 
and we would lament, and we would remonstrate 
against it. But it is curious enough to observe, 
that the very men w'ho are so eagle-eyed in de¬ 
tecting, and so merciless in exposing, the unwor¬ 
thiness referred to, are often wosse beyond com¬ 
parison in their deportment, and yet pretend to 
believe in the Gospel. They live at large; and 
yet they must not be accused or suspected of 
having that evil heart of unbelief. They bewail 
the prevalence of infidelity in the world around 
them; they lift up an open testimony against it; 
and they bless themselves, that, in this respect, 
they are “ not partakers of other men’s sins.” 

This is a fact of much more frequent occurrence 
than is commonly imagined. It is a melancholy 
one. It is fraught with much mischief ; and, 
therefore, it deserves to be exposed, both for the 
sake of those to whom it attaches, and for the 
general interests of Christianity. 

We allow that a man may have a Christian faith, 
and yet may act occasionally an unworthy part. 
Through the infirmity of his nature, he may yield 
to a sudden or powerful temptation; and thus be 
“ overtaken in a fault.” But even then, he goes 
astray just because he ceases to have faith for the 
time; or which is much the same thing, because 
the objects on which his faith is accustomed to 
operate, are, in consequence of the intervention 
of sensible objects, and of the tumult of lawless 
passions, so indistinctly seen, or so completely ob¬ 
it 4 


100 


SERMON V . 


scured, as to be incapable of producing their na¬ 
tive and ordinary effects. And the moment that 
he comes to himself,—the moment that the parox¬ 
ism of desire is over, or that the external allure¬ 
ment is withdrawn, and that his faith is permitted 
to see with its wonted clearness, he feels remorse 
and sorrow for having departed from the living 
God, and sets himself to be more vigilant, more 
self-denied, and more obedient in future,—thus 
showing, in the most decisive manner, that he is 
in truth a believer, and that his faith had only suf¬ 
fered a temporary interruption in its exercise, 
from the prevalence of a temporary cause. He 
knows from experience, as well as from the word 
of God, that he has naturally such a decided pro¬ 
pensity to sin, and that this propensity meets with 
so much encouragement from outward circumstan¬ 
ces, as to stand in need of some powerful princi¬ 
ple to resist and counteract it, and to secure that 
personal holiness which it tends to impair or to de¬ 
stroy. He knows, from the same sources of in¬ 
formation, that this principle is faith ; that, so long 
as he was destitute of it, sin had dominion over 
him, and he was its willing, polluted, and degraded 
slave ; that this it is which has “purified his heart,” 
which has given him the victory over the world, 
which has disposed and animated him to those 
deeds of moral virtue with which his character is 
now adorned; and that, in proportion to its ener¬ 
gy and its liveliness, are the attainments which he 
makes in piety, and purity, and every good work. 
And hence it is a matter of primary moment with 
him, to cultivate it by every suitable means, to 
keep it in constant exercise, to look often to its 


SERMON V . 


101 


foundations and its encouragements, and to pray 
fervently that it' may not be permitted to fail in 
the hour of trial, but may daily become, more and 
more efficient, not only as a source of peace and 
joy, but also as an instrument for his sanctifica¬ 
tion in soul, and body, and spirit. 

Now, my friends, if this account of the Chris¬ 
tian be correct, it cannot be that you should habit¬ 
ually sin against God, and yet have faith estab¬ 
lished in your minds. If you are wicked, in the 
ordinary tenor of your conduct, it must proceed 
from an “evil heart of unbelief.” Infidelity is un¬ 
questionably the cause of it. And all the profes¬ 
sions you can make, and all the sophistry you can 
employ, are utterly insufficient to draw us away 
from this conclusion. Whatever theory you may 
get up about the connection between a man’s 
principles and his practice, and about the possibil¬ 
ity of retaining good principles after the practice 
has become bad, to this truth we can never be in¬ 
sensible, that the Gospel is the only instrument 
by which “ the disobedient are converted to the 
wisdom of the just;” and that the Gospel does, in 
fact, produce this moral change, wherever it is re¬ 
ally and cordially believed. 

Your belief in the Gospel, indeed, does not af¬ 
ford a perfect security against your breaking the 
divine law. But such is the nature of that belief, 
and such is the character of its objects, that it 
must, upon the whole, be preventive of ungodli¬ 
ness and vice. All the doctrines to which it points, 
are calculated to operate with a controling and pu¬ 
rifying influence on those in whom it dwells; and 
all the precepts with which these doctrines are ac- 


102 


SERMON V. 


companied, are wholly without meaning, except in 
so far as they direct and govern you; and it is one 
of the veiy things in which you are understood to 
believe, that your faith is a practical principle, and 
that every truth to which it is directed, must be 
so embraced, as to become a guide or a motive to 
holiness. If, therefore, you surrender yourselves 
to the sway of unhallowed passions, and walk af¬ 
ter the imaginations of your own hearts, and if 
your past transgressions, instead of filling you with 
compunction, and being succeeded by a more 
watchful and circumspect behaviour, are recollec¬ 
ted with indifference or with pleasure, and only 
pave the way for a more open and reckless viola¬ 
tion of every moral restraint, it must necessarily 
be inferred, that infidelity is working and reign¬ 
ing in your breast. 

You may not profess infidelity. You may not 
be distinctly conscious of acting upon its princi¬ 
ples. You may not have formally, even in your 
own mind, renounced your adherence to Christi¬ 
anity. You may perhaps imagine that it still 
holds its place in your regard as a divine system. 
But to say that you really believe it, though you 
contradict its whole spirit and letter, and design 
and tendency, in your habitual deportment, is to 
make an assertion which we feel it impossible to 
credit. Where, in this case, is the proof of your 
faith ? Where is there a single symptom of its 
existence in your mind ? Where shall we look for 
one evidence, on which we can rely, that you tru¬ 
ly possess it? What credit can we give to your 
verbal declarations, when they are not only not 
supported, but absolutely belied by the uniform 


SERMON V. 


103 


tenor of your conduct ? All that you present to 
our view, and from which we are best able to 
judge of your sincerity, indicates a total want of 
that to which you nevertheless pretend. You af¬ 
fect to be believers, and yet you act in every re¬ 
spect as if you were unbelievers ; for if you were 
unbelievers, we should expect your deportment to 
be exactly what it is with your present profession. 
Surely, then, we are warranted to infer, that you 
are only deceiving yourselves, or attempting to 
deceive us, when you take your station among 
those who believe. 

You would not decide in this way, when judg¬ 
ing of other men in other cases. An individual 
who has an enlightened and established confidence 
in the government of his country, may, in an un¬ 
guarded moment, be seduced into a disloyal or 
rebellious action. And if he returns to his allegi¬ 
ance without delay, and expresses contrition for 
having broken it, and acts in future, as he had 
done before, the part of a good and faithful sub¬ 
ject, you would not hesitate to admit that his bet¬ 
ter principles had only been subdued for a season " 
by some peculiar temptation, or that he had mere¬ 
ly forgotten what he knew that he owed, and had 
determined to pay, to legal and acknowledged au¬ 
thority. But supposing that he was continually 
uttering the language of sedition, and encourag¬ 
ing by every means a spirit of disaffection among 
his countrymen, and carrying, without disguise, 
the standard of revolt and insurrection throughout 
the land, would you confide in the most solemn 
assurances he could give you, that he believed the 
government to be constitutionally most excellent, 


$ 


104 


SERMON V. 


and most wisely administered—that he believed 
submission to it to be not only the dictate of du¬ 
ty, but necessary for his own safety and welfare 
—and that he believed opposition to it to be as 
ruinous to his worldly interests as it was incon¬ 
sistent with his most matured convictions ? Cer¬ 
tainly not. And yet you would have us to con¬ 
fide in the asseverations that you make of your 
believing in the authority, and wisdom, and right¬ 
eousness, and mercy, and necessity, of the gov¬ 
ernment of Almighty God as unfolded in the Gos¬ 
pel, though your life is one continued series of 
trespasses against his law, and the only language 
of your conduct is, “ Depart from us, for we de¬ 
sire not the knowledge of thy ways : What is the 
Almighty that we should serve him, and what 
profit shall we have if we pray unto him!” 

Take religion as a whole, or consider it in all 
its various parts, and you must be sensible that 
no absurdity can be greater than the allegation 
that you are firm believers in it, while, at the 
same time, you do nothing which it requires, and 
every thing which it forbids. What! Can you 
be said to believe in God, as he has been pleased 
to reveal himself, though you be every day and 
every hour insulting him by profane oaths, and 
setting all his attributes at defiance by deliberate 
and multiplied transgression ? Can you be said to 
believe in his providence, though you murmur at 
its dispensations, and speak as if it were unjust, 
or act as if it were but an idle fiction ? Can you 
be said to believe in the character and work of 
Jesus as the Saviour, though you persevere wil¬ 
fully in that, from which he bore the agony of the 


SERMON V . 


105 


cross to redeem you ? Can you be said to be¬ 
lieve in heaven, though you are going on to dis¬ 
qualify yourselves more and more for being final¬ 
ly admitted into it ? Can you be said to believe 
in hell, though you are unceasingly, and with 
your eyes open, practising that which must at 
length plunge you into its condemnation and its 
terrors P Can you be said to believe in the moral 
system of the Gospel, as enacted by divine au¬ 
thority, and enforced by divine sanctions, though 
you are perpetually trampling its precepts under 
foot, and treating it with less respect than you 
would show to the commandments of an earthly 
superior ? Surely it is not possible, that a faith 
and a practice, between which there is such a 
wide and manifest and perpetual contrariety, 
should subsist together. Surely there can be no 
communion of this kind between such light and 
such darkness. 

Examine yourselves closely, and you will find 
that the frame of your mind corresponds exactly 
Avith your outward demeanour; that the evil heart 
of unbelief is lodging within you ; that this alone 
accounts for that ungodliness and immorality with 
which you are chargeable ; and that it is in vain 
for you to flatter yourselves with the idea, that 
while you are indulging in this immorality and 
ungodliness, you are entitled to be regarded in 
any other light, either by yourselves or by your 
fellow men, than that of the disciples and abettors 
of infidelity. 

But if you still can allow yourselves, while you 
are pursuing a course of profligacy and profane¬ 
ness, to speak of retaining firmly your conviction 


106 


SERMON V . 


of the truth, and your attachment to the doctrines 
of religion—if you still suppose yourselves capa¬ 
ble of realizing such an inconsistency, and are in¬ 
clined to derive any confidence or comfort from 
one part of it, while you continue to indulge in 
the other, I would remind you, that when your 
conviction of the truth, and your attachment to 
the doctrines of religion are so inefficient as to 
put no actual restraint on your conversation and 
your doings, then your belief, as to eveiy thing 
useful and desirable in it, is tantamount to unbe¬ 
lief, and that, though you may not choose to be 
denominated infidels, yet your alleged faith is not 
in the least degree better than infidelity. And, 
therefore, you would do well to consider how far 
you act wisely or safely in resting satisfied with a 
distinction in the mere name, when there is no 
difference in the reality of that which bears so di¬ 
rectly on your immortal interests—rhow far it can 
avail you to be proof against the charge of specu¬ 
lative infidelity, while you lie open at every point 
of your character to the charge of practical infidel¬ 
ity—how far it is consistent with reason or with 
truth that the religious faith, which we must in 
charity hold you to be conscious at least of pos¬ 
sessing, can cheer you or uphold you in the pros¬ 
pect of that judgement, in which, among other 
things, you must be presumed to believe, while 
you must be &,ware, at the same time, that, at ev¬ 
ery successive step of your moral career, you are 
departing farther and farther from the living God 
who is to judge you. 

Ah! my friends, do not thus trifle with common 
sense, and with true religion, and with your own 


SERMON V. 


107 


souls. At length acknowledge that you have 
been laboring under a sad delusion. Let us not 
quarrel about the mere appellation by which you 
would wish your spiritual state to be denoted. If 
you must not be called unbelievers, confess at 
least that you have so much of the “evil heart of 
unbelief,” as that you are of those to whom our 
Lord will say on the great day of reckoning, “De¬ 
part from me ; I know you not; Ye are the work¬ 
ers of iniquity.” And bear with me, when I ad¬ 
dress to you, as justly and alarmingly applicable, 
the admonition of the apostle in my text, and ex¬ 
hort you, as I now do, with all earnestness, to 
pray most fervently that God would take away 
from you the evil heart which is at once sp unbe¬ 
lieving and so deceitful, that he would give you a 
new and a better heart, and that he would “fulfil 
in you all the good pleasure of his goodness, and 
the work of faith with power.” 

3. We now adduce the case of those who ex¬ 
hibit, in their practice, the decencies, and hones¬ 
ties, and charities, of a good life, but do so with¬ 
out any regard to the principles of godliress, and 
the authority of the Gospel. 

This is a character which cannot, we think, ex¬ 
ist to any great extent; but, in a limited degree, 
we do sometimes meet with it. And, for the sake 
of shortening the discussion, we shall suppose it 
free from any of those palpable defects with which, 
in its most faultless instances, it is invariably 
marked, and by which the least sagacious obser¬ 
ver may easily distinguish it from the character 
of a real Christian. We shall suppose that the 
persons to whom it belongs are not guilty of neg- 


108 


S E R IVI 0 N V . 


lecting any of the ostensible duties of morality, or 
of practising any of those vices which the letter 
of the ten commandments forbids. We shall sup¬ 
pose that they exhibit nothing to the eye of their 
fellow-men, in which transgression can be detect¬ 
ed ; that they hold forth a visible and a rich dis¬ 
play of the more substantial fruits of righteous¬ 
ness ; and that, were there no farther inquiry 
made into the matter, they would be esteemed 
worthy of the highest approbation of man, and fit 
for entering into the celestial presence of God. 
We shall suppose all this ; and yet we say that the 
character thus commending itself to us, may carry 
in it, in spite of its specious and imposing claims 
on our admiration, all the reality, and all the guilt, 
and all the danger of that “evil heart of unbelief, ” 
which we see so clearly, and acknowledge so 
readily, in the case of those who are openly profli¬ 
gate and profane. 

You may be equitable in all those dealings and 
transactions with others, which constitute the bu¬ 
siness of life. You may be active and liberal in 
all the labors of private beneficence, and in all the 
enterprises of public philanthropy. You may be 
chaste and temperate in your personal deport¬ 
ment. You may be meek amidst the thousand 
provocations that assail you in your intercourse 
with the world. And you may be patient under 
the most severe and complicated and protracted 
distresses to which humanity is liable. But if the 
whole of this apparent excellence is created and 
supported by the power of physical causes, or of 
worldly motives alone,—if it arises from natural 
instinctive disposition,—if it is the offspring of 


SERMON V . 


109 


mere self-love,—if it originate in a fictitious sense 
of honor,—if it be produced by those secular con¬ 
siderations Avhich sometimes induce the avowed 
infidel to do what is right, and to avoid what is 
wrong,—if it is to be traced solely to the opera¬ 
tion of any, or of all of these circumstances,— 
then, by what rule of deduction, or by what law 
of association are we led to infer your belief in 
Christianity, or so much as ever to think of your 
having such a belief? If the phenomena of your 
moral conduct be so fully accounted for by those 
inferior principles of action with which they are 
obviously connected, and to which your own con¬ 
sciousness so distinctly and exclusively refers 
them, what is there in all that you do, that can jus¬ 
tify us in having recourse to the hyppthesis of your 
putting faith in the Gospel ? If your justice re¬ 
sult from the terror of. that disgrace, or of that 
punishment with which society is sure to visit ev¬ 
ery violation of its acknowledged maxims ; if your 
alms are bestowed for the purpose of gratifying a 
constitutional tenderness of feeling, or of acquir¬ 
ing that reputation and popularity which seldom 
fail to be the portion of the bountiful giver; if your 
personal sobriety is dictated by the fear of losing 
the advantages of health, and fortune, and a good 
name, your attachment to which happens to be 
stronger than your attachment to the gratifications 
that would have injured them; if your forbearance 
under provocation arises from a native softness of 
temperament, or from a cowardly terror of the ven¬ 
geance of your adversaries, or from a prudent cal- 
culation of the benefits that a meek endurance of 
wrongs secures to him who shows it; if your pa- 

L 


110 


SERMON V . 


tience under "affliction resolves itself into sullen- 
ness, or insensibility, or pride, or engrossment in 
the pleasures of a fashionable life, or in the cares 
of a busy one ; if all your good and boasted quali¬ 
ties are to be traced to these and similar sources, 
then what proof do they afford that the charge of in¬ 
fidelity is laid against you with injustice ? Where 
is there in one of them the least tittle of Evidence 
that you have the belief of the Gospel established 
in your minds ? Which of therm evinces the most 
distant recognition of its influence and authority ? 
From which of them are we to gather that it has 
any existence, even as an object of your simple 
apprehension ? 

Had not Christianity been made known to you, 
indeed, it is not at all likely that you would have 
had such a correct and unexceptionable system 
of practical duty as that which we have supposed 
you to exhibit; and had we seen nothing more 
than your outward regard to “whatsoever things 
are pure and lovely, and of good report,” we should 
have had little hesitation in ascribing it to a “be¬ 
lief of the truth.” But now that the mystery of 
your character is unfolded to us, and that its vir¬ 
tues are known to be derived from such sources as 
those that we have alluded to, we are no longer 
left to the exercise of the charity Avhich “believeth 
all things, and hopeth all things.” There is set 
before us a course of action which has no alliance 
with Christianity,—which makes no appeal to it as 
coming from heaven, or as laying any obligations 
« on the inhabitants of the earth*—which would 
have been pursued though you had been confes¬ 
sedly infidel with regard to the being of a God, 


SERMON V . 


Ill 


the mission of a Saviour, or the certainty of an 
eternal retribution,—and which must of necessity 
have carried in its aspect some tokens of your 
belief in these things, had not this belief been an 
utter stranger to your understanding and your 
heart. 

It must be a complete misapprehension of Chris¬ 
tianity which prevents any one from discovering, 
in such conduct as that on which we are now com¬ 
menting, a striking demonstration of the “evil 
heart of unbelief.” For Christianity not only pre¬ 
scribes the conduct which you seem to be main¬ 
taining,—it also prescribes the principles and mo¬ 
tives under whose power that conduct is to be 
observed at first, and persevered in afterwards; 
and it gives its sanction and promises its recom¬ 
pense to no conduct but what is thus produced. 

Its doctrines and its moralities are incapable of 
being separated, either in the estimation or in the 
life of the believer. They are systematically uni¬ 
ted in the record which contains them—united by 
the relation of cause and effect. The bond of un¬ 
ion between them as objects of regard, is belief. 
And this belief derives from the former that influ¬ 
ence which alone is efficacious to generate and to 
npurish the latter, so as to make them ingredients 
of the Christian character. Even now, therefore, 
Christianity disowns you as its votaries in any re¬ 
spect or in any degree : for though you are doing 
many of those things which it commands, you are 
not doing them because it commands you, and you 
are not doing them from any reverence for those 
doctrinal views which it holds out to you as neces- " 
$ary to be entertained, equally for their own sake 


112 


SERMON V . 


and for the sake of giving sincerity and worth to 
your most virtuous actions. And how shall you 
be able to stand the trial of the last day, when you 
shall be judged, “not according to appearances,” 
but according to the rules and maxims of a “right¬ 
eous judgement”—when “the deeds done in the 
body” shall be appreciated by their conformity to 
the will of God, as that will is revealed in the 
Gospel—when his eye shall not discover in one 
of your doings a single trace of faith in the mes¬ 
sage of grace and holiness which he has sent you 
by Jesus Christ—and when from those very vir¬ 
tues which are gaining for you the applauses of 
your brethren, and soothing your own hearts with 
the persuasion that to you there can be no condem¬ 
nation, he will cause to stand forth that spirit of 
bold defiance, or that contemptuous indifference to 
his supreme authority, which will cast upon every 
one of them the darkest shade of guilt, and seal 
you over to the fate of those who shall perish be¬ 
cause of the “evil heart of unbelief.” 

It is indeed a gratifying contrast which your 
character seems to form with that of the ungodly 
and profligate around you, and it is probable, that 
you may be regarded with as much of general ap¬ 
probation, as there is awarded to them of general 
dissatisfaction and contempt; and yet it may be 
questioned whether, after all, your infidelity is not 
more indubitable, and more hopeless, too, than 
theirs. The immoral man may plead, that impet¬ 
uous passions and powerful allurements have over¬ 
ly borne and subdued his faith, or made him blind to 
the excellences, and deaf to the claims, of religion. 
And though this leaves us without any evidence 


SERMON V . 


113 


that he has faith, and though it gives us evidence 
that he has not faith, still it accounts for his want 
of it in a way which is consistent with the suppo¬ 
sition, not only that he has not finally and in sober 
purpose cast it away, but that he may sooner or 
later resume it. It may be said, let his passions 
once grow cool, and let external allurements be 
withdrawn, and let him have a fair view of that 
which he has hitherto rejected, and his faith may 
revive again, and make him lament his weakness, 
and wonder at his infatuation. But, in your case, 
no such explanation can be given—no such plea 
can be offered—no such hope can be entertained. 
Your passions, if they have raged, have not, it 
seems, obtained the mastery. External allure¬ 
ments, if you have been exposed to them, have 
failed, it seems, to overpower your resolutions, and 
to corrupt your ways. You retain the correct, and 
sober, and honorable deportment, from which they 
attempted and struggled to turn you away. And 
yet Christianity has had nothing to do in the vic¬ 
tory you have achieved, and nothing to do in main¬ 
taining the fruits of the conquest you have won. 
Christianity asserts to herself the sole prerogative 
of renewing and sanctifying her votaries ; but you 
have sought that renewal and sanctification with¬ 
out her assistance, and without her assistance you 
think you have obtained them. And you go on in 
what you imagine is the path of goodness, with¬ 
out the least acknowledgement of her authority, 
in one word that you utter, or in one action that 
you perform. Thus calmly, and deliberately, and g 
systematically, you resist the interference of di¬ 
vine revelation ; you banish it from the whole plan 
l 2 


114 


SERMON V . 


of life ; you prefer the exclusive guidance of other 
lights, and submit to the undivided government 
of other principles; and with this consideration be¬ 
fore us, how is it possible, I would ask, to suppose 
that Christian faith has the least footing in your 
mind ; or what encouragement have we to expect, 
that it shall ever acquire the ascendancy in a cha¬ 
racter which is so much pervaded by the spirit of 
self-complacency, and in which virtue and peace 
are conceived to have been secured, without any 
reference to the aid, or to the truth, or to the au¬ 
thority of the Gospel? Beyond all controversy, 
there is in you the “evil heart of unbeliefand 
there is every reason to fear, that this “evil heart 
of unbelief” is likely to remain with you, so long 
as you dwell with so much satisfaction and confi¬ 
dence on the imagined virtues of your character. 

We supposed you, at the outset of our argu¬ 
ment, to have a much more unmixed and perfect 
character than what you could in justice lay claim 
to. And even on that favorable supposition, it 
cannot be denied that the charge of unbelief is 
clearly made out against you. But it will be sub¬ 
stantiated still more completely, when we take 
your character as it really is—as comprehending 
not only good actions performed on worldly and 
unchristian principles, but bad actions performed 
on the same principles, without any regard at all 
to their conformity or their contrariety to the Gos¬ 
pel. Does not your conscience tell you of many 
duties neglected, and of many sins committed, up¬ 
on that very system, through whose operation it is 
that you also give us the spectacle of many duties 
discharged, and many sins avoided, and which is 


SERMON V . 


115 


equally independent and unmindful in both cases, 
of the revelation and will of God ? And is not 
this an additional proof, that any pretensions you 
can make to the reputation of believers, are whol¬ 
ly groundless and hypocritical ? For instance, 
your love of money makes you moderate in the in¬ 
dulgence of your appetites, and your proud tem¬ 
per renders you patient under suffering. But 
what if your love of money has also tempted you 
to defraud an unsuspecting brother, who can nev¬ 
er detect your dishonesty ; and what if your proud 
temper has led you to oppress an inferior, who 
cannot resist, and who dare not complain ? Have 
we not here the most conclusive and irresistible 
evidence, that those parts of your conduct which 
correspond with the precepts of Christianity, are 
just as much animated by the spirit of rebellion 
against it, as are the most glaring and aggravated 
of your vices ? And what then can we do, but 
rank you among the abettors of real, though it 
may be unconscious, as it is unacknowledged, in¬ 
fidelity ? 

Indeed, my friends, that very character of yours 
on which you lay so much stress, is, to every in¬ 
telligent Christian, an evidence against you. For, 
if you had looked to the Scriptures with a believ¬ 
ing eye, you must have seen how far short it comes 
of what they prescribe, and how grievously you 
have been deluding yourselves with what is little 
better than “a name to live,” while, as to the mor¬ 
al excellence required of you, you are literally 
“dead.” From your resting satisfied with such 
low and partial attainments in holiness, we infer 
l 3 


116 


SERMON V . 


that so far from believing in Christianity, you have 
not even made yourselves acquainted with its mor¬ 
al system, or that, if you have acquired that knowl¬ 
edge, you have no more respect for it than for the 
speculations of mere human Avisdom. And as 
you Avould still impress us with the idea that you 
have not renounced Christianity, we have a right, 
and whether the idea be correct or not, it is our 
duty, to call upon you to go to the light of revela¬ 
tion,^ that you may discover the miserable and 
deep-seated defects which attach to all your boast¬ 
ed virtues—that the deception in which you have 
been hitherto indulging may be unveiled and re¬ 
moved—that you may have clear and impressive 
views of the necessity of the Gospel scheme, for 
saving and sanctifying you as subjects of God’s 
righteous administration—and that thus, by the 
divine blessing, you may be led to believe with the 
heart unto righteousness, and be possessed of the 
reality of that of which, though essential to your 
happiness both here and hereafter, you have not 
one satisfactory token, and scarcely the most in¬ 
considerable semblance. 


SERMON VI. 


SAME TEXT. 

4. In the fourth place, we mention those who 
are characterized by worldly-mindedness. 

This implies a devotedness of heart to the ob¬ 
jects of sense and time,—a deep-rooted and para¬ 
mount attachment to the things that are upon the 
earth, for their own sake, or for the sake of the 
sensual gratifications which they afford,—an ar¬ 
dent and incessant pursuit of wealth, and pleasure, 
and honors,' and such other temporalities, as the 
sources of our chief good, and as our chosen por¬ 
tion. Alas ! this is no ideal character. It is re¬ 
alized every day in the case of multitudes, and in 
every various condition of life. And the worst 
of it is, that they who are distinguished by it, in¬ 
stead of suspecting that the faith of the Gospel 
has lost its footing in their mind, seem to be as 
secure and happy as if all were well with them, 
and as if they had seen their names written in the 
book of life. 

l 4 


118 


SERMON VI. 


Now, to all £uch worldlings I would say, you 
give symptoms of the “evil heart of unbelief,” too 
decisive to be mistaken by any competent obser¬ 
ver. There is such a contrariety between your 
practical system and the system of Christianity, 
both as to its spirit and its letter, that we do not 
see how your adherence to the one, and your faith 
in the other, can co-exist. There is no possible 
view we can take of Christianity, which does not 
lead to this conclusion. And that you should 
think otherwise, is to be attributed to your resting 
satisfied with vague ideas on the subject, and nev¬ 
er taking the trouble to analyze what you profess, 
and to ascertain the import and effect of its vari¬ 
ous parts. Just let your attention be directed to 
a few of the aspects in which it may be consider¬ 
ed, and you cannot fail to be sensible how greatly 
you are deceiving yourselves. 

What does Christianity tell you of God ? Does 
it not represent him as worthy of all the homage 
you can pay to him, and does it not represent him 
as expressly demanding it all? And yet you 
withhold it from him, and still say that you believe 
in him as entitled to it! Nay, more, while you 
withhold your homage from Him to whom you con¬ 
fess it should, in all duty, and in all consistency, 
and in all safety, be wholly and cheerfully paid— 
you give it without reserve to another that is alto¬ 
gether undeserving of it in the least degree, and 
that you are plainly told cannot receive it from 
you without involving you in impiety and condem¬ 
nation. You allow the creature, with all its mean¬ 
ness and corruption, to engross your best affec¬ 
tions ; and the infinitely perfect Creator to ask 


SERMON VI. 


119 


these affections in vain. And notwithstanding 
this, we must give you credit for believing in the 
divine record, which forbids such a monstrous pre¬ 
ference, and which gives you a demonstration of 
its sinfulness and its folly, in all that it tells you 
of that to which the preference is shown, and of 
him to whom the preference is denied, and which 
commands you in so many words to “love the 
Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and 
strength, and mind !” 

You pretend, indeed, that though you are im¬ 
mersed in the world, you do not neglect your re¬ 
ligious duties. You attend church, and you read 
your Bible, and you do many other things which 
your Maker has required. But are you not aware 
that the divine record tells you that “you cannot 
serve God and Mammon that these two masters 
cannot be obeyed and loved at the same time, and 
by the same individual ; and that you must make 
your choice, and give yourselves up to the domin¬ 
ion either of the one or the other ? Even without 
such information, you might have known and felt 
the impossibility of serving both; but after that 
impossibility has been declared in Scripture, you 
cannot surely go on to contradict the declaration 
in deed, and yet affect that you believe in the de¬ 
claration as a part of God’s own word. 

Again, what does Christianity tell you of the 
Saviour in reference to this subject ? It tells you 
that he died upon a cross for the very purpose of 
redeeming you from the vain conversation and the 
corrupting power of the world ; and of course, none 
in whom this effect is not produced, can say that 
they are partakers of Christ’s redemption. But 


120 


SERMON VI. 


we see you so much given up to the vain conver¬ 
sation of the world, and so much enslaved by its 
corrupting power, that you feel no relish for any 
thing which draws away your attention from it, 
and scruple not to give it your days and your 
nights in unwearied succession, and have all the 
appearance of setting up your everlasting rest in 
its low and perishing habitations. And is this re¬ 
concilable with any measure of faith in the doc¬ 
trine of the cross ? Or can we be so far imposed 
on as to think that you sincerely believe in the 
scriptural position of Christ dying for you, that the 
world might be crucified unto you, and that you 
might be crucified unto the world ? 

And what does the preceptive part of revelation 
say, as to your affections towards the world? It 
says, “Use this world as not abusing it, knowing 
that the fashion of all things passeth away.” 
“Love not the world, neither the things that are 
in the world. If any man love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him.” “Be not conformed 
to the world.” You read this, and you straight¬ 
way go into the very heart of the world; and you 
make your chosen companions of the men of the 
world; and you are terrified at the frown and the 
ridicule of the world ; and you plunge with un¬ 
bounded license into the gaieties and amusements 
of the world; and you seek the gains, or court the 
applauses of the world ; and you serve it so zeal¬ 
ously and so unremittingly, and you accommodate 
yourselves so easily to its maxims, and opinions, 
and fashions, and you are so happy when it smiles 
upon you, and so miserable when it refuses to min¬ 
ister to your joy, that one would conclude you to 


SERMON VI. 


121 


have been created and nurtured solely for the 
world. And from the very mylst of this worldly 
career, you would make a profession of your faith 
in the testimony which the law of God has borne 
against it, and would complain of being misrepre¬ 
sented and calumniated, if we say that you too are 
cherishing an “evil heart of unbelief!” 

But what, let me ask you, is the great and ulti¬ 
mate end of all true religion ? Is it not to lift 
you above this world ? Is it not to elevate your 
ambition to the better world which lies beyond it ? 
And is it not to prepare you for its noble employ¬ 
ments and its exalted happiness, by detaching 
your affections from terrestrial things, and teach¬ 
ing you, even while on earth, to have your conver¬ 
sation in heaven ? But can you really be said to 
believe in such statements while you are pursuing 
a course which must manifestly and necessarily 
exclude you from the celestial world to which it 
points your view, and which involves in it a per¬ 
fect and complacent satisfaction with a present 
world, from which it is equally its design and its 
tendency to wean your attachments ? 

Say what you will, m) v friends, it is clear from 
every aspect in which the matter can be contem¬ 
plated, that such worldly-mindedness as yours, is 
utterly incompatible with faith in the religion of 
Christ. You may try to soothe your consciences 
with the notion that you are still adhering to its 
creed, and to its hopes, and to its consolations; 
but it is all a deception. And it may jqst as tru¬ 
ly be said, that he who falls down every morning 
and evening to worship the gods of the heathen, 
which are no gods, has not abjured his confidence 


122 


SERMON VI. 


in the one living and true God, as that you who 
idolize the vices and the vanities of the world— 
surrendering to them your affections, and devoting 
to them your lives—are, nevertheless, in the judge¬ 
ment of reason and of the Gospel, free from the 
“evil heart of unbelief.” 

Do not, I beseech you, encourage any longer a 
notion so contradictory in itself, and so fatal in its 
consequences. Let your meditations go out upon 
every part of the Gospel, that you may see how 
adverse it is, in all its bearings, to worldly-minded¬ 
ness. And may the Holy Spirit make them in¬ 
strumental in convincing you of your vital infidel¬ 
ity, and in bringing you, in spite of the world, and 
in triumph over it, to “believe in God,” and to 
“believe also in Christ.” 

5. We n»w adduce another illustration, from the 
case of those who live in the wilful and habitual 
neglect of religious ordinances. 

These are a constituent part of revelation, not 
superinduced upon it by the wisdom or the super¬ 
stition of men, but holding an essential place in 
it, as proceeding from God, and as sanctioned by 
his authority. They are of divine appointment; 
and therefore they are entitled to our submission, 
as much as any thing else in that system in which 
we find them. Even though we understood no¬ 
thing of their design, and had experienced nothing 
of their effect, yet as coming to us enforced by 
the will of Him who ruleth over all, they demand 
from us, on this simple ground, a cordial and prac¬ 
tical acquiescence. And viewing them in this 
light, how can we say of any man to whom they 
are objects of irreverence and contempt, that he, 


SERMON VI. 


123 


notwithstanding', gives full credit to the Gospel 
by which, as by the voice of |he Almighty, they 
are expressly enjoined ? Being thus enjoined, 
they are as intimately connected with the Gospel 
as are the precepts of the moral law; and so far 
as conduct is a proof of faith, this proof is want¬ 
ing, not more in the case of those who violate the 
latter, than in the case of those who neglect the 
former. They are both sanctioned by God’s au¬ 
thority ; and whosoever deliberately tramples upon 
either of them, tells us as distinctly in deeds as 
he could have done by words, that with respect 
to the dispensation which represents them as hav¬ 
ing that sanction, he has the “evil heart of un¬ 
belief.” 

The only mode by which the force of this argu- 1 
ment can be evaded or destroyed, is that of deny¬ 
ing the obligation of religious ordinances—deny¬ 
ing that they can be fairly discovered in the sacred 
record, or denying that, though mentioned there, 
they are mentioned in the form of a requirement, 
or in such a way as to bring them within the range 
of Christian duty. If any man can establish this 
position, or if any man conscientiously holds it, 
we have nothing more to say so far as he is con¬ 
cerned. But proceeding, as we do, on the suppo¬ 
sition that the ordinances of religion have the seal 
of heaven impressed upon them—that it is God 
himself by whom they have been instituted—that 
they are urged upon our respect and our practice 
by the same high authority which speaks to us, 
and is recognized by us, in every other department 
of the Gospel—proceeding on this supposition, 
we must either conclude that those from whose 


124 


SERMON VI. 


scheme of life they are in a great measure or al¬ 
together excluded, have not the faith to which 
they pretend, or we must be prepared to maintain, 
that a man may live as it seemeth good in his 
own eyes, and be nevertheless secure against the 
charge of unbelief. 

There is another consideration which deserves 
notice. The ordinances of religion are evidently 
instituted for this among other purposes, to pre¬ 
serve and to confirm our faith in the Gospel. In 
the intention of their Author, they are means for 
promoting and accomplishing this end. And un¬ 
less the means be employed, it cannot be expect¬ 
ed that the end shall be gained. Besides, when 
we reflect on their nature and tendency, and on 
the nature and circumstances of man, we must be 
sensible that they are admirably calculated, both 
by their immediate and their indirect operation, to 
keep alive in his mind the principle of Christian 
belief; and that something of this description is 
necessary, not merely to strengthen and animate 
that principle, but even to maintain its existence 
amidst inward corruption and surrounding tempta¬ 
tions. And it requires no very shrewd observa¬ 
tion of what is passing around us, and no very ex¬ 
tensive acquaintance with the history of human 
character, to satisfy us that the ordinary forerun¬ 
ner of immorality and infidelity is a want of due 
attention to the ordinances of divine institution; 
and that, even where unbelief has been the pri¬ 
mary cause of disregarding them, this disregard to 
them has, by a natural re-action, rendered the un¬ 
belief more settled and complete. When, there¬ 
fore, we see a person turning his back on the in- 


SERMON VI. 


125 


stitutions of the Gospel, and doing so year after 
year, though we may not be entitled to say that 
this neglect originated in infidelity, yet we are 
entitled to infer that it has at length produced this 
effect; and that, whatever the person may have 
been at the outset, he has now the “evil heart of 
unbelief.” I must either draw this inference, and 
rest in it as a correct one, or I must see some¬ 
thing in his character and situation, which makes 
him independent of what Scripture and experience 
concur in representing as so important for prevent¬ 
ing apostacy from the faith of Jesus. 

And then it may not be useless to think, for a 
moment, of the employments which the persons 
we are speaking of substitute for the observance 
of Christian ordinances, and for the sake of which 
they habitually neglect them. They habitually 
neglect them, that they may engage in the pursuit 
of wealth, or in the pursuit of sinful pleasure, or 
in the pursuit of idle amusement. They do it 
that they may indulge their worldly-mindedness, 
and their criminal appetites, and their vain imag¬ 
inations. Or they do it, perhaps, that they may 
not deserve the imputation of being “righteous 
overmuch,” and may escape the censure or the rid¬ 
icule of ungodly companions. In short, the state¬ 
ment amounts to this—they habitually neglect the 
ordinances which Christianity enjoins, that they 
may give themselves to the gratifications which 
Christianity forbids. And in the face of all this, 
how is it possible, on any principle of reasoning 
or of charity, to exculpate them from the charge 
of unbelief? Is it possible to see them as care¬ 
less of perusing the Bible, as if it were all a use- 


126 


SERMON VI. 


less fiction; as unmindful of prayer, as if there 
were no God to whom it might be addressed; as 
regularly absent from public worship, as if their 
Maker had rather discouraged than invited their 
attendance in the sanctuary; as inattentive to sa¬ 
cred exercises on the Sabbath, as if that day had 
been made to be profaned and not to be kept ho¬ 
ly; as neglectful of commemorating the death of 
Christ, as if Christ had never died to save them, 
and had never said, “Do this in remembrance of 
me—is it possible to see them guilty of all this 
practical contempt of the ordinances of the Gos¬ 
pel, and, along with this, devoting the time which 
these ought to have occupied, to indolence, to re¬ 
creation, to the world, and to sin; and yet to ad¬ 
mit the plea, that faith in Christianity still retains 
its hold of their understanding or their heart? 

If such a plea, in such circumstances, were to 
be held as good and valid, then there is no propo¬ 
sition in religion, or in morals, however absurd 
and monstrous, that may not find advocates to sup¬ 
port, and judges to sustain it. And, indeed, I 
should not have thought it necessary to say so 
much as I have done on so plain a subject, were 
it not that in all things the heart of man is deceit¬ 
ful—that there is a great laxity, both of senti¬ 
ment and of conduct, on this point, prevailing, in 
what is called the Christian world—and that we 
have not a few among us, who exhibit the most 
contemptuous treatment of Christian institutions, 
and yet not only deny that they have the “ evil 
heart of unbelief,” but bewail, and reprobate, and 
wonder at, and testify against, the infidelity which 
they discover in the language and conduct of others. 


SERMON VI. 


127 


6. In the last place, we mention as another in¬ 
stance, those whose conduct manifests indifference 
to the preservation and success of Christianity in 
the world. 

I would not by any means be understood to as¬ 
sert, or to insinuate, that every one who takes an 
active part in defending or in propagating the 
Gospel, is a true believer, and may hope for sal¬ 
vation. This, we fear, is not an uncommon idea ; 
but it is, withal, utterly groundless, and most delu¬ 
sive ; and, instead of giving it any degree of coun¬ 
tenance, I would carefully warn you against it, 
as equally erroneous and dangerous. You may 
give your pecuniary aid and your personal labors 
to the cause, and your zeal, and diligence, and 
liberality, may procure for you the most • extrava¬ 
gant praises which the pen of flattery ever record¬ 
ed; and yet there may be in you such an “evil 
heart of unbelief,” as will render all your richest 
gifts, and all your most bustling activity, no bet¬ 
ter than the “sounding brass and the tinkling 
cymbal.” 

But though I would protest against the notion, 
equally mistaken and mischievous, that all is well 
with you, merely because you bestow much, and 
labor much, for upholding and for diffusing the re¬ 
ligion of Christ, I would also endeavor to impress 
it upon you, that there cannot well be faith in 
those who take no concern in its prosperity. Sup¬ 
posing that a man professed to believe, not mere¬ 
ly that we have a civil constitution, but that it is 
incomparably excellent, and of vast importance to 
our welfare, and that it has claims on his support, 
arising from these circumstances, and from the 

M 


128 


SERMON VI. 


actual benefit he has enjoyed under its fostering 
protection; and supposing it to be menaced by 
foreign aggression, or by internal hostility, which 
he has it in his power to repel,—would you con¬ 
sider his profession as sincere, if yet he did not 
exert himself to sustain it in the midst of its per¬ 
ils ? Or, rather, would you not brand him with 
disloyalty, and at once pronounce him to have been 
hypocritical in all the declarations he had made ? 
But suppose him farther to profess his belief, that 
this civil constitution is equally adapted to all man¬ 
kind ; that its blessings could be conveyed to oth¬ 
ers without injuring or impoverishing ourselves; 
and that it is one of its obvious and acknowledged 
principles, that its subjects should be eager to dif¬ 
fuse it among all the tribes and kingdoms of the 
earth ; and that one of its characteristic properties 
is, to infuse into those who live under its sway, a 
spirit of the warmest and most disinterested be¬ 
nevolence to the people of other countries,—would 
you give credit to his professions, if you saw him 
indifferent whether it ever got a more extensive 
establishment in the world, making no voluntary 
exertions for that purpose, refusing to unite with 
those who were doing so, and rather setting him¬ 
self in opposition to their honest and generous 
endeavors ? 

Now apply this to the subject before us, and let 
me ask you, what greater credit is due to those 
who profess to believe in Christianity, and in the 
face of this profession, do nothing for the cause 
of Christianity ? If they truly believe in Christ¬ 
ianity, they must believe it to be of divine origin 
—they must believe it to be full of interest and 


SERMON VI. 


129 


importance to every human being—they must be¬ 
lieve it to be intended by its great author to be 
of universal benefit—they must believe it to be 
the cause of God, and of truth, and of mankind— 
they must believe it to be a system of compassion, 
a system which shows compassion to them , which 
requires them to have compassion on others, and 
which holds it out as the highest style of compas¬ 
sion, that they vindicate its honor, and spread its 
influence—and they must believe, that for the 
manner in which they treat it, both as it respects 
themselves and their fellow-men, they must render 
a strict account to him who is to “judge the quick 
and the dead.” Their faith, if they have faith, 
must include all this; but what if, professing to 
have such faith, that system on which it is avow¬ 
edly fixed secures from them no active interfer¬ 
ence in its behalf? What if they sit and hear, 
unmoved, the blasphemy and the derision with 
which its adversaries assail it in their presence ? 
What if they put forth no energy in order to stem 
the torrent of infidelity which may be threatening 
to overwhelm it ? What if they turn a deaf ear 
to those ignorant and helpless sinners that are be¬ 
seeching them to impart it for their instruction 
and their salvation ? What if they withhold their 
countenance and aid from those institutions which 
have it for their object to circulate the knowledge 
and increase the influence of Christianity at home 
and abroad ? What if they embrace none of the 
various opportunities that are afforded them in the 
course of Providence, of widening its dominion ? 
What if they feel and express no joy when they 
hear of the triumphs which it is gaining over eve- 


130 


SERMON VI. 


ry thing that exalts itself against God, that en¬ 
slaves the conscience and degrades the condition 
of man ? And what if, in wantonness or malignity, 
they oppose the labors of the Christian philan¬ 
thropist, and brand him with the stigma of fanati¬ 
cism, and hold him up to the ridicule and contempt 
of a world already too willing to laugh at those 
who care for the souls and the eternity of their 
brethren, and thus try to paralyze every generous 
effort for the cause of the Gospel, and to doom the 
race of Adam to that idolatry and superstition, 
that sin and misery, from which it was revealed to 
rescue them ? What does all this mean, and what 
can it mean, but that the persons alluded to have 
no real conviction of Christianity—that if they 
think they have, they are somehow or other deceiv¬ 
ing themselves—that they have the “evil heart 
of unbelief?” 

I would be far from saying, indeed, that this 
charge is applicable to any man, merely because 
he does not adopt the precise methods of support¬ 
ing or propagating Christianity which others have 
proposed to him—because he does not enter into 
this scheme to-day, and into that scheme to-mor¬ 
row—because he does not join this Bible Society 
and that Missionary Society—because he does not 
attend a sermon for this spiritual purpose, and a 
meeting for that spiritual purpose—because he 
will not give money at one time, and active ser¬ 
vice at another—because, in short,' he will not sub¬ 
mit to be guided and controlled in all his move¬ 
ments by those who choose to be dictators in the 
field of Christian benevolence. Such modes of 
judging, we lament to say, are sometimes practis- 


SERMON VI. 


131 


ed ; but they are uncandid, unjust, and injurious ; 
and I would equally deprecate and avoid them. I 
leave every man to the exercise of his own dis¬ 
cretion as to the plans he is to adopt, the means 
he is to employ, the efforts he is to make, for pro¬ 
moting the interests of Christianity. I only de¬ 
siderate that he shall keep these interests in view, 
and that he shall pursue them: I desiderate this 
as an essential evidence of his faith ; and if he is 
destitute of this evidence, I feel myself necessi¬ 
tated to conclude, that he has the “evil heart of 
unbelief.” And I put it to the judgement of eve¬ 
ry one of you to say, if the conclusion be not le¬ 
gitimate and irresistible. 

You may not have hitherto considered the sub¬ 
ject in this light, and you may be still unwilling 
to view it in this light. But surely, if you do no¬ 
thing for supporting the religion of Christ when it 
is attacked, or for communicating it to those who 
have it not—if you do not rejoice in the conquests 
which it achieves over its enemies—if you assist 
in loading with obloquy and scorn such of your 
fellow-men as are zealously affected in the work 
of evangelizing the earth—if you even withhold 
your aid from those institutions we have referred 
to, merely because you love your money better 
than your Saviour, or than those for whom your 
Saviour died—and if your recollection does not 
furnish you with any instances in which, by means 
of religious truth, you have attempted to “ save a 
soul from death, and to hide a multitude of sins” 
—then how is it possible that you can, with any 
consistency, be said to have believed with your 
heart in the Gospel of divine truth—the Gospel 
m 2 


132 


SERMON VI. 


of eternal salvation—the Gospel of compassion and 
of love ? Possessing a scheme of philosophy, in 
whose tendency to advance the improvement of 
the species you had every degree of confidence— 
possessing a discovery in one of the common arts 
of life, from the communication of which you 
would anticipate an accession of comfort and pros¬ 
perity to the people—possessing a medical prepa¬ 
ration, of whose efficacy in curing diseases, here¬ 
tofore deemed hopeless, you had a perfect convic¬ 
tion—would not your belief in all these things 
determine you to make them known, and to bring 
them into beneficial operation as widely as possi¬ 
ble ? And what can we say for you, if, professing 
to believe in the truth, and necessity, and efficacy 
■ of the gospel, as a system of eternal redemption 
for the human race, you are at no pains to give it 
circulation and effect ? What can we say for you, 
but that your profession is vain, and that there 
lodges beneath it “an evil heart of unbelief?” 

Thus have we endeavored to illustrate our 
statement, by adducing a variety of appropriate 
illustrations. And now, methinks, some of you 
will be ready to exclaim, “ this is a hard saying; 
who can hear it? We flattered ourselves that we 
were all believers, and in the course of this dis¬ 
cussion, you have made it out that we are all infi¬ 
dels.” No, my beloved brethren; I trust not. 
I trust there are many of you who “believe 
with the heart,” and who “ believe to the sav¬ 
ing of the soul.” But I wish to draw aside 
the veil with which you are so apt to cover the 
worst defects of your character; and to let in the 
light of truth upon them, so that you may be qual- 


SERMON VI. 


133 


ified to judge accurately of your real condition, 
and that you may be urged to provide for your 
safety by discovering your danger. I have ad¬ 
dressed myself to your understandings, and have 
assigned my reasons for the conclusions I have 
drawn. And if these reasons be unsatisfactory, 
by all means let the' conclusions be rejected and 
go for nothing. But if the argument be sound, 
do not resist the inference, because it humbles 
your pride, and makes you less in love with your¬ 
selves, and less confident in your eternal pros¬ 
pects, than you were before. Nothing could have 
induced me to give such an enlarged application 
to my subject, or to have brought forward such an 
apparently sweeping accusation, or to have an¬ 
nounced such a broad and comprehensive infer¬ 
ence, but my anxiety for your spiritual welfare. 
And remember how deeply you are interested in 
all that has been said. It refers to what should 
be most precious to you—the salvation of your 
soul. It is intended to caution you against re¬ 
posing in the possession of that ambiguous or su¬ 
perficial character, which is too often all that is 
aimed at, and too often all that is acquired. It is 
intended to lead you to the cultivation of that tru¬ 
ly Christian character which has faith for its mas¬ 
ter principle, and embodies that principle in every 
one of its doings, and displays that consistency of 
conduct with profession, which is the only and the 
never failing index to real conviction. The ob¬ 
ject is of vast importance to your present and 
eternal well being, and deserves your most serious 
consideration. For if you have the mere appear- 
m 3 


134 


SERMON VI. 


ance, not the reality of faith, or if you are living 
in the supposition that you have it when you have 
it not, you cannot make the improvement, nor en¬ 
joy the peace which Christianity secures to its vo¬ 
taries upon earth. And when you stand before 
the bar of God, it will be of no avail to you, that 
you thought yourselves believers, and that you 
were esteemed believers by an evil and flattering 
world, while, in truth, the eye of Omniscience 
saw you cherishing the “evil heart of unbelief.” 

This may be all true, and yet you may still 
think that you believe. If, however, you will ex¬ 
amine yourselves, you will find that your thinking 
so is nothing more than self-deception, and may 
be accounted for on various suppositions. Per¬ 
haps you have received, in‘some good degree, a 
Christian education, and the effect of this early 
discipline still continues with you so far, as that 
you retain that feeling of respect for religion 
which had been carefully impressed upon your 
youthful mind, and which, by the very" natural 
error of taking the sign for the thing signified, 
you have set down for an acquiescence in its 
truth. Perhaps you are in the habit, from secular 
motives, of attending with punctuality on the 
public ordinances of the gospel, and in this way 
give an apparent recognition, which may easily 
be mistaken for a real conviction, of its impor¬ 
tance and authority. Perhaps you have once be¬ 
lieved, and your faith not having been formally 
thrown off, but gradually and insensibly destroyed 
by various causes, you may feel its old impres¬ 
sions coming back upon you, and, though the 


SERMON VI. 


135 


mere visitants of your memory or your fancy, like 
the recollections of a reverie, or the illusions of a 
dream, they may half persuade you that you are 
believers still. Perhaps you have a vague idea 
that there is such a thing as religion, and perhaps 
you go a little farther, and suffer yourselves to 
think more precisely and definitely of some of its 
articles, and allow that there is a God, and that 
the soul is immortal, and that Christ is a Saviour, 
and that there is a certain connexion between this 
world and the next; and all this does look some¬ 
what like faith, and in consequence of resembling, 
is permitted to pass for it. Perhaps the various 
doctrines of Christianity have come before you in 
the shape of abstract propositions, with which you 
have got well acquainted, and which you are con¬ 
tented with not denying, and which you know to 
be reverenced by many of your fellow-men, and 
to which it would be accounted indecent to signi¬ 
fy any dislike, or to proclaim any hostility ; and 
this passive, speculative contemplation of them 
is, without difficulty, construed into an acknow¬ 
ledgement of their truth. Perhaps, in your inter¬ 
course with Christians, you have, from complai¬ 
sance, or from some similar motive, so often spo¬ 
ken of the gospel as a system of divine origin, 
and of incalculable moment, that your verbal tes¬ 
timony has set itself down in your recollection as 
the expression of real sentiment, and you have 
come at length to look upon yourselves as adher¬ 
ents to the faith of Christ. Perhaps you are ac¬ 
customed to regard Christianity as a very useful 
thing for mankind in general, because it leads 
them into habits of sobriety, and honesty, and 
m 4 


136 


SERMON VI. 


peaceableness, which they would not otherwise 
cherish ; and there is such a close affinity be¬ 
tween a conviction of its necessity for others, and 
a credence of its truth in one’s self,’ that the for¬ 
mer may be easily enough confounded with the 
latter, or considered as equivalent to it. Or, per¬ 
haps, you have been accustomed to regard reli¬ 
gion as highly expedient, and even indispensably 
necessary for keeping the people in due subordin¬ 
ation, and to hold it as, on that account, an essen¬ 
tial part of the political system of every country 
and of every period of the world ; and from your 
reverence for it as a great state engine, you have 
come to contemplate it, and to speak of it, as if 
you deemed it an unequivocal and momentous 
verity. 

These suppositions may help to explain the in¬ 
consistency of your imagining and saying that 
you believe, while you give to others the most 
irrefragable proofs that you do not believe. And 
if you will only consider them with an impartial 
application to yourselves, and if, along with this, 
you will recollect, that true faith looks not merely 
to the temporal usefulness, but to the spiritual 
nature and tendency of the gospel; not merely 
to its indubitable truth, but to its infinite import¬ 
ance ; not merely to its general claims on the re¬ 
gard of men, but to the individual and necessary 
interest that you have in it; not merely to the 
doctrines and precepts which it contains, but to 
the requisition that it makes of your assent to the 
one, and your obedience to the other ; not merely 
to certain parts of it which taste, or inclination, 
or prejudice, may prefer ; but to its whole system, 


SERMON VI. 


137 


as intended for the government of your principles 
and conduct, and to all its bearings on your fu¬ 
ture and eternal destiny ;—you will be forced to 
acknowledge, that as to every one of the charac¬ 
ters we have hypothetically imparted to you, there 
can be no reasonable doubt, and no way of escap¬ 
ing the conclusion, that you have that very thing 
against which the apostle warns you—the “ evil 
heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
God.” 

I am far from intending to reduce all those 
against whom this charge may be brought, to the 
same level. I do not mean to assert, that the va¬ 
rious classes of persons I have described, are 
equally advanced in the paths of irreligion. There 
is no propriety, and no justice, in confounding the 
distinctions which evidently obtain among them. 
But surely it is a poor consolation which is deriv¬ 
ed from certain differences subsisting as to the 
number and locality of the symptoms, while the 
disease itself is ascertained to exist in evefy one 
of the cases, without doubt, and without excep¬ 
tion. If you are proved to have the “ evil heart 
of unbelief,” let not your attention be occupied 
with the mere diversities of character which, in 
this respect, distinguish you from one another.' 
Let the sole object of your consideration be, the 
great substantial fact, with regard to which these 
diversities are comparatively mere trifles. Let 
no circumstances whatever be allowed to conceal 
or to extenuate it. Look at it in all its certainty, 
and in all its effects. And be persuaded to adopt 
those measures which every wise man would have 
have recourse to, who discovers that he has been 


138 


SERMON VI. 


hitherto blinded to his real situation, and who is 
now made to see, that whatever there is of guilt, 
and whatever there is of danger, in infidelity, just 
as surely attaches to him as it does to those who 
have openly renounced the doctrine and the yoke 
of Christ. 


SAME TEXT. 


In the present discourse, we shall consider the 
sinful nature and awful consequences of unbelief, 
as to the person to whom it attaches. The doc¬ 
trine we maintain is this, that unbelief is a state 
of mind truly and strictly sinful; and that those 
who cherish it, are liable to punishment propor¬ 
tioned to its native guilt, and its aggravating ac¬ 
companiments. 

Infidels, in general, think so little of their re¬ 
sponsibility for any thing, and are so much accus¬ 
tomed to indulge in uncontrolled speculation, and 
look upon the principles of religion so confidently 
and habitually as mere absurdities, that they can¬ 
not be brought to consider the subject as involv¬ 
ing a moral question, or made to see that their 
rejection of any doctrine whatever, can fix upon 
them the quality of guilt. And many of those 
■who profess the Gospel, seem to imagine that 


140 


SERMON VII. 


there is no delinquency in relation to it, except 
what arises from contradicting its precepts, after 
admitting its truth ; and that those who deny its 
truth are culpable, not for that denial, but only 
for those violations of the law of nature which it 
may occasion, or for those actions which would 
have been criminal, whether there had been a rev¬ 
elation or not. 

Both, however, are mistaken in holding such an 
opinion. Christianity, which the infidel rejects, 
is a revelation from heaven. It is not a mere hu¬ 
man speculation, of whose merits we are left to 
judge for ourselves, and which we may admit or 
disregard at our pleasure. It is not a mere col¬ 
lection of facts, and doctrines, and precepts, pre¬ 
sented to us we know not how, or wherefore, or 
from whom, and with every part of which we may 
use the most unlimited freedom, innocently, and 
with impunity. It is not a rule of faith and duty 
communicated to us by a being to whom we do 
not stand in the relation which requires submis¬ 
sion, or to whose enactments resistance might be 
rather a virtue than a crime. It is a divine mes¬ 
sage. It declares the will of Him who has all 
power and all perfection dwelling in him. It re¬ 
fers to our salvation from the sin and misery in 
which apostacy has involved us. God expressly 
commands us to believe it. And he lays the bur¬ 
den of our eternal state upon our believing or not 
believing it, according to his injunction. “ This 
is his commandment, that ye believe on the name 
of his Son Jesus Christ.” And “ he that believ- 
eth on the Son hath everlasting ],ife, but he that 
• believeth not the Son shall not see life ; the wrath 


SERMON VII. 


141 


of God abideth upon him.” This is the view 
which Christianity itself gives us ; and we are not 
permitted to take any other, or to reason upon 
any other. But from such a view it necessarily 
results, that those who reject Christianity disobey 
the God of heaven and earth,—disobey him in a 
case in which submission is unequivocally and 
peremptorily demanded,—disobey him as to that 
in which we are called on by our submission to 
do honor to every one of the perfections which 
adorn his great and glorious character. And dis¬ 
obedience to God is that which constitutes the 
very essence of sin, and subjects the creatures 
who are chargeable with it to a sentence of con¬ 
demnation. 

It is very true, there can be no sin in disbeliev¬ 
ing that for which there is not sufficient evidence. 
Our Creator has so formed us, that the mind can¬ 
not give its assent to a proposition which, how¬ 
ever true and important in itself, is not supported 
by evidence proper in its kind, and adequate in its 
degree. And to withhold the assent, in such cir¬ 
cumstances, from the gospel, can imply no want 
of reverence to Him who is at once the author of 
that v gospel, and the author of our nature. But 
then the rematk has no correct application to the 
subject before us. For when God commands us 
to believe the gospel, he commands us to believe 
that which he has at the same time accompanied 
with proofs, numerous, various, and conclusive. 
They are proofs which have convinced multitudes 
in the ages that are past, and which, so far as 
they themselves are concerned, are sufficient, and 
more than sufficient, to convince every man to 


142 


SERMON VII. 


whom they are presented. This, indeed, may be 
denied; and when it is denied, we can only reit¬ 
erate our assertion, and appeal to a particular con¬ 
sideration of every thing which we are wont to 
adduce for substantiating the truth of Christiani¬ 
ty ; and then maintain, that if belief is still with¬ 
held, there is, in some shape or other, a resistance 
to the authority of God. 

But as it may not be very obvious how this can 
be fairly maintained, so as to implicate unbeliev¬ 
ers in sin on account of their unbelief, we offer 
the following observations :— 

In the first place, before the reasons that are 
held out for .believing in Christianity can be pro¬ 
ductive of that effect, they must be attended to. 
They must not merely exist, or be known to ex¬ 
ist ; but they must be made the subject of thought 
and of study, and applied to the purpose for 
which they have been provided. And unless this 
be done, they might just as well have been with¬ 
held, and room given for the complaint that men 
are required to have faith, without a proper found¬ 
ation being given them on which to build it. 
Now, to all such as neglect the evidences of 
Christianity—as will not examine them, and try 
their force and sufficiency, we are entitled to say ; 
“You disbelieve Christianity—but your unbelief 
is not owing to the want of evidence ; it is owing 
to your own want of consideration; and till you 
give it this consideration,—till you be at due 
pains to inform yourselves of its different parts, 
and of their different bearings,—till you have ta¬ 
ken this necessary step for determining the ques¬ 
tion, and in consequence of taking that step, have 


SERMON VII. 


143 


decided against the gospel;—till this be done, 
we must hold you to be guilty of disobedience to 
God, who commands you to believe the gospel, 
and gives you evidence to support and justify 
your faith.” 

In the second place, the reasons that are afford¬ 
ed to you for believing in Christianity must be 
studied, and weighed, and decided upon, without 
prejudice. Without an impartial investigation, 
an equitable decision is not to be expected ; and 
if your investigation be entered into, and conduct¬ 
ed, under the influence of prepossessions which 
bear against Christianity, it is next to impossible 
that the best evidence should succeed in com¬ 
manding your assent; and the want of success 
must, in that case, be attributed to that unfair and 
blameable state of mind in which you prosecuted 
your inquiry. If you allowed yourselves to be 
under bondage to the opinions of it3 learned ad¬ 
versaries ; if your intellectual pride had resolved 
to make every mysterious proposition an argument 
against it; if your previous attachment to a sys¬ 
tem of opinions was so strong, as to make you 
look with jealousy and dislike on whatever stood 
opposed to it, even in a revelation from heaven ; 
if the moral habits you had acquired were repug¬ 
nant to its pure and holy precepts, and so invete¬ 
rate that you could not think of relinquishing 
them on any account; if you have judged of the 
claims of Christianity on your belief, with such 
views, and feelings, and resolutions as these, and 
if these have been the cause of your finding it 
unworthy of your belief, then your rejection of it, 
being the result of culpable or sinful prejudice®, 


144 


SERMON VII. 


must still be resolved into disobedience to God, 
and expose you to his displeasure. 

In the third place, the reasons which are pre¬ 
sented to you for believing in Christianity, must 
not only be considered, and candidly considered, 
they must also be patiently considered. If your 
attention be directed to them only for a little 
while; if you grow weary of the task, because 
you are not speedly satisfied; if the difficulties 
you meet with discourage you, and ere long induce 
you to abandon it; if an indolent disposition pre¬ 
vents you not only from making vigorous efforts 
at first, but from persevering in it afterwards ; if 
some secular pursuit is permitted to divert your 
attention from it, and you leave it undone, that you 
may follow the business or the pleasure of the 
world; and if you continue in scepticism or infi¬ 
delity, in consequence of a failure in your inqui¬ 
ries for which you can offer no valid excuse, here 
also you must stand accused of disobedience to the 
will of God ; nor can you rebut the accusation 
with any decency or propriety, while it is evident 
that you have been more sparing of your time, 
and of your trouble, and of your patience, in ex¬ 
amining the credentials of those who pretended to 
have a divine commission, and whose message was 
of the very last importance, than you would have 
been with any thing that affected your bodily com¬ 
fort or your outward prosperity. 

Having mentioned these points, I think that I 
have mentioned the causes of almost all the infi¬ 
delity that prevails. Wherever these causes are 
allowed to operate, infidelity is the natural conse¬ 
quence. And surely it is not to be questioned, 


SERMON VII. 


145 


that the infidelity which originates in such causes 
must be sinful. It is not the result of circum¬ 
stances over which the»individuals who have em¬ 
braced it had no control, and in which their moral 
dispositions and purposes had no willing participa¬ 
tion. It is the result of certain qualities of mind 
and character of which they had the management, 
for the management of which they are responsi¬ 
ble, and to which they have given such a direc¬ 
tion and such an influence as has succeeded in 
making them reject the counsel of God ; and, there¬ 
fore, it will form a part of their reckoning in the 
great day of the Lord, just as much as any other 
violation of the divine commandments, which they 
did not avoid, because they did not choose to 
make a proper use of their faculties, and to shun 
or resist the temptations to which they were ex¬ 
posed. 

I can, indeed, conceive the case of a man in¬ 
quiring carefully, candidly, and patiently into the 
truth of the gospel; and yet unable to arrive at 
any thing like a clear or decided conviction of its 
being a revelation. I can conceive the case of a 
man so situated. And such a man I would rever¬ 
ence for his conscientious dealings with the sub¬ 
ject. I would pity him for the painful misgivings 
and distressing doubts which adhere to his inqui¬ 
ry. And I would cherish the hope, that he might 
yet see his way through all the difficulties and 
obstructions which are keeping him back from the 
Saviour, and that he might yet fall down and 
worship, saying, “ Lord, I believe, help mine un¬ 
belief.” 


146 


SERMON VII. 


But, alas ! though it be possible to imagine a 
thing of this kind taking place, what reason have 
we for thinking that it is "ever realized ? From 
all that we see, and from all that we know of infi¬ 
delity, we should conclude that examples of such 
perfect ingenuousness of mind on the part of those 
who have embraced it, do never in fact occur, or 
that their occurrence is so extremely rare as not 
to affect our argument. Even where an individ¬ 
ual flatters himself that he is using all diligence 
and candor on the subject, it may be that he is as 
much the victim of some unhappy prejudices, as 
he is who is conscious of his prejudices, and wil¬ 
fully and knowingly influenced by'them. And in 
all such instances the individual must be regarded 
as accountable for his unbelief. 

Indeed, when we recollect how much our be¬ 
lief in testimony, and all other kinds of evidence 
adduced for the truth of any fact or averment 
whatever, depends on the attention we pay to the 
evidence, and the feelings with which we regard 
the thing that is to be proved, and our anticipation 
of the consequences that will follow our admis¬ 
sion of it;—when we recollect how much this hap¬ 
pens in all cases, we cannot fail to perceive that 
it must be peculiarly incident to the case of reli¬ 
gion. Such is the nature of Christianity, and such 
are the relations which our feelings and our inter¬ 
ests bear to it, as a system of doctrine and of du¬ 
ty, that it seems quite impossible to render the 
study of its evidences a purely intellectual process. 
It necessarily involves in it, at every stage of our 
proceeding, a moral process also: And for this 


SERMON VII, 


147 


reason, we are as answerable for tlie conclusion to 
which we come, as if that conclusion were a mere 
and immediate expression of the will. When I 
think evil, or speak evil of any person, I may be 
speaking or thinking in strict conformity to the 
bearings of the evidence that is before me, respect¬ 
ing his conduct; and yet my judgement of him 
may be altogether unjust; and not only so, but if I 
have not taken sufficient pains to obtain the evi¬ 
dence that exists, or have not given it a delibe¬ 
rate and impartial consideration, or have allowed 
myself to pervert any part of it, I am as really li¬ 
able to censure for the judgement I have formed, 
as I would have been, had I rejected all inquiry, 
and all guidance, and given a dogmatical and un¬ 
favorable decision at once. The application of this 
obvious maxim to the case before us is plain, and 
cannot be mistaken. And therefore it is rational 
and just that every man should be deemed respon¬ 
sible for his unbelief, and that, in certain circum¬ 
stances, it should be pronounced sinful, and sub¬ 
ject the person holding it to condemnation and 
punishment. Hence it is that God commands us to 
believe. He accompanies the commandment with 
sufficient evidence for the truth of what he propo¬ 
ses to our faith. And his commandment refers to 
our giving a suitable reception and a becoming 
treatment to that evidence. If we give it such a 
reception and such a treatment, the result will be 
belief. If we receive and treat it in a different, 
or improper and unjustifiable way, the result will 
be unbelief. And this being the immediate and 
certain result of what is unquestionably an abuse 
of our moral and intellectual powers, as applied 


148 


SERMON VII. 


to that to which divine authority requires that we 
shall apply them without any such abuse, it fol¬ 
lows as a matter of course, that our unbelief is 
truly and substantially an act of disobedience to 
God; in other words, it is a sinful act, and expo¬ 
ses the transgressor to the penalty of a broken 
law. 

Now, my friends, if unbelief be thus sinful, think 
how great that sinfulness is, and how dreadful 
must be the punishment with which it shall be vis¬ 
ited. Christianity, which unbelievers reject, is a 
message from God; and, considered simply as a 
message from God, how much disrespect to the di¬ 
vine authority—what a daring contempt of the di¬ 
vine majesty does it imply! And independently 
of the nature or purpose of the message, what an 
awful condemnation will the mere refusal of it 
bring upon their guilty heads ! But deeper is their 
guilt, and more awful their condemnation, when 
we recollect what that message is which they 
spurn away from them. It is a message of grace : 
It conveys to them the offer of pardon, reconcilia¬ 
tion, and eternal life : It makes a complete provis¬ 
ion for their deliverance from hell, and for their 
final exaltation to heaven. In refusing the gos¬ 
pel, therefore, they refuse to be saved. They de¬ 
liberately prefer a continuance in that state of al¬ 
ienation from God, and of liability to everlasting 
destruction, in which disobedience has already 
placed them. And continuing in that state, they 
must inevitably perish. And all that they shall 
suffer as sinners, must be aggravated tenfold by 
the reflection, that they suffer because they des¬ 
pised the redemption that was provided for them 


SERMON VII. 


149 


—because they shut their eyes against the light 
of heaven, and their ears against the voice of heav¬ 
en, and their hearts against the mercy of heaven 
—because they persevered in infidelity, in despite 
of all the tenderness with which God entreated 
them, and in defiance of all the authority with which 
he commanded them, to believe in one who “ was 
mighty, and able to save them to the very utter¬ 
most.” 

I know that all this is likely enough to share the 
same fate with the whole of that doctrine which 
they have rejected, and to furnish materials for 
their profane ridicule, instead of awakening them 
to a sense of theii guilt and their danger. But 
whether they will hear, or whether they will for¬ 
bear, it is our duty to proclaim the truth. It may 
come to pass that the Spirit of God shall send it 
home with efficacy to their souls, and make them 
tremble and cry out with the jailor at Philippi, 
“ What must we do to be saved ?” Our statement, 
however, is chiefly for warning to those who be¬ 
lieve and are in danger of apostasy, and to those 
whose hearts, though somewhat tinctured with the 
principles of unbelief, are not yet hardened by the 
deceitfulness of sin, and not yet under bondage to 
the despotism of infidelity. To all such we par¬ 
ticularly address ourselves. We would inculcate 
what we have said upon the one class, that they 
may avoid any approach even to the confines of that 
guilty system, and “ keep their confidence stead¬ 
fast unto the end.” We would inculcate it upon 
the other class, that they may be induced to pause 
and to reflect before they advance farther in the 
pathway of their departure from the living God, 
n 2 


150 


SERMON VII. 


and that by means of their remaining sense of the 
things which belong to their peace, they may be 
persuaded by the terrors, as well as by the com¬ 
passions of the Lord, to return to him, and depart 
no more. And we would inculcate it upon both 
classes, that whatever part they may hereafter act, 
and whatever fate they may hereafter undergo, it 
may not be said that any portion of the counsel 
of God was Avithheld from them, and that they 
were not told by those who “ watched for their 
souls,” of the personal guilt and danger in which 
every infidel is involved. We proclaim this to 
you without disguise and without reserve, that un¬ 
belief is not a mere error of the judgement, but a 
deadly crime in the heart; that when its abettors 
talk of an insufficiency of evidence, it is only a 
cloak to cover their conscious enmity to the truth, 
or a delusion into which moral corruption has se¬ 
duced them ; that every one who rejects the gos¬ 
pel commits an act of disobedience to God, involv¬ 
ing in it contempt of his high authority, and in¬ 
gratitude for his richest mercy ; and that along 
with all the enemies of the Most High, they “shall 
have their part in the lake that burns with fire and 
brimstone, which is the second death.” 

My friends, I ask you not at present to look to 
the life which infidels lead, for a proof of the guilt 
and the misery which are brought upon them by 
their peculiar tenets. You may see them decent 
and amiable in their outward deportment, and you 
may see them as tranquil or as joyful as if they 
had a “ conscience void of offence towards God 
and towards man.” And though there are doubt¬ 
less moments in which they have misgivings and 


SERMON VII. 


151 


horrors of mind, from which it requires all the ab¬ 
straction of philosophy, and all the gaieties of the 
world to divert their attention, yet upon the whole 
it may happen, that you shall not discover any 
marked difference between them and the disciples 
of a better school. 

Neither do I ask you to think of the death-bed 
of infidels. We can conceive them dying in com¬ 
posure from thoughtlessness, ,or with satisfaction 
from particular views which they have contrived 
to hold fast of a future state and of the divine mer¬ 
cy, and even in such an easy frame of mind as to 
jest almost with their last breath on the change 
they are about to undergo. A death-bed scene is 
by no means the proper test of their situation. 
And yet there is one view of it which is worthy 
of being noticed. A real Christian was never 
heard to lament at the hour of dissolution, that he 
had feared the Lord, and believed in Jesus, and 
walked according to his gospel ;—all his regret 
has been, that his endeavors to do so had been so 
imperfect, and that he had so often neglected his 
God and Saviour. But we have never known that 
it is customary for infidels to congratulate them¬ 
selves, at their expiring moments, that they had 
thrown off* the yoke of Christianity, to express joy 
that they had not been so weak as to confide in 
its doctrines and promises, and to counsel their 
families and their friends to become or to continue 
infidels like themselves. But notwithstanding this, 
the death of infidels does not let us in to their re¬ 
al condition. As they might not have been “pla¬ 
gued like other men” in their life, so they may 
n 3 


152 


SERMON VII. 


have no “ bands in their death.” Our opinion of 
their state must not depend on what they feel or 
do not feel: but on what they really are now, and 
on what they are really to be hereafter. And it 
is enough for us to know, that in consequence of 
their not believing on the Son of God, they have 
sinned and are condemned already ; that the calm¬ 
ness with which they may breathe their last is 
but the stilly presage of a coming storm; and that 
even though the glance of triumph should lighten 
up their eye, as it closes upon this mortal scene, 
it shall open at the last day on the terrors of an 
incensed God, and on the wrath of a despised 
Redeemer, and on the “ vengeance of eternal fire.”' 

But our illustration cannot stop here. If you 
are unbelievers, that in itself is a great sin, and 
draws after it a grievous and overwhelming judge¬ 
ment. But the sin and its penalty assume a more 
lowering and frightful aspect, when we think of 
the effect of your infidelity upon others. Even 
though you have no wish or no intention to prop¬ 
agate your opinions, and use no endeavors for the 
purpose of giving them circulation, you move in a 
certain sphere of intercourse, and consequently 
of influence. Your language will be heard when 
you “ speak out of the abundance of your heart 
your conduct will be observed when you walk “in 
the ways that are not good by some means or 
other your sentiments will be known, and you will 
be quoted, perhaps, where you least expected it, 
to justify the unbelief of others, and to encourage 
them in their departure from the living God ; and 
if you live long in the world, it may happen that 


SERMON VII. 


153 


the crimes which you condemn, and the miseries 
which you deplore around you, shall be discovered 
to be the fruit of your own example. And surely 
it is a heinous and alarming feature of the case, 
that there should be any of your fellow-men who 
can trace their unbelief to you , and whom you 
have been thus instrumental in corrupting and de¬ 
stroying. It is dreadful to think, that since this 
is the effect which your infidelity has a tendency 
to produce, you can scarcely fail to have been the 
cause of such serious and irreparable wrongs to 
your fellow-creatures ; and that, however obscure¬ 
ly you have lived, and however cautious you have 
been in giving currency to your sentiments, there 
are probably some—probably many, who are suf¬ 
fering now from that circumstance, and who shall 
suffer from it for ever. And is it not more pain¬ 
ful and alarming still, that though you should at 
length become sensible of your error, and be anx¬ 
ious to repair the injuries you have inflicted, you 
know not who they are that have become the vic¬ 
tims of your unbelief; and that after you have be¬ 
come alive to the atrocity of what you have done, 
or been the means of doing, some individual in a 
distant land, or in your very neighborhood—some 
individual whom you once loved, and who loved 
you in return—some individual for whose safety 
you would give the wealth of worlds, is expiring 
in the agonies of despair, and cursing you with his 
latest breath as the author of his ruin. 

That indeed is bad, but the worst feature of the 
case still remains to be noticed—deliberate at¬ 
tempts to destroy the faith of others. Whenever 
infidelity is the confirmed habit of the mind, this is 
n 4 


154 


SERMON VII. 


likely to be the habitual expression of it. When 
associated, indeed, with strong suspicions of its 
unsoundness, or when united with mild and amia¬ 
ble dispositions, or when connected with thought¬ 
less and inconsiderate gaiety, or Avhen existing 
along with a conviction of the political expediency 
and necessity of religion, it may have no great 
tendency to propagate itself with the intention of 
him who holds it. But let it occur along with an 
unfeeling and malignant temper, whether that tem¬ 
per be original, or produced by its hardening in¬ 
fluence—let it be accompanied with a fondness for 
displaying intellectual acumen and superior learn¬ 
ing—or let the person who holds it have a talent 
for ridicule—and then it will manifest itself in fre¬ 
quent and assiduous endeavors to make others 
renounce their partiality for religion, and range 
themselves among its adversaries. 

But, independently of these considerations, the 
mind which has embraced infidelity must naturally 
and in general be inclined to diffuse it. I speak 
not here of the effect of sincerity on those who 
have embraced it, though certainly if they are sin¬ 
cere, and have any love to what they deem truth, 
they should not in duty and in kindness confine 
the discovery and advantages of it to themselves. 
I speak not of such, because I am persuaded that 
the effect of sincerity is much modified by a se¬ 
cret consciousness, that in this case, truth and 
charity are at variance. ‘ But I refer to the inclin¬ 
ation which every one feels to defend opinions 
which he knows to be generally obnoxious, and 
which tend to lower his character in the estimation 
of most people, and to injure his name and his 


SERMON VII. 


155 

character in the world ; and which defence is to 
be accomplished, not merely by vindicating his 
particular opinions when they are formally attack¬ 
ed, but by frequently introducing them into dis¬ 
cussion, and by provoking the controversy, so as 
to have an opportunity of showing how much ar¬ 
gument is on his side, and with what ability he 
can maintain it, and by laboring to make prose¬ 
lytes to the system which he knows and feels to 
be offensive and hateful. This must be in gene¬ 
ral the inclination of the infidel. It is an inclin¬ 
ation which he must have many opportunities of 
gratifying. And when he meets, as he will often 
do, with the ignorant, the young, the weak, and 
the unstable, the prospect of succeeding in his en¬ 
deavors to shake or weaken their faith, will tempt 
him, above all his powers of self-denial or of pi¬ 
ty, to assail them with his insinuations, and his 
objections, and his ridicule against the religion 
of Christ. 

In speaking of the guilt which is contracted by 
those who thus, in the wantonness or in the ma¬ 
lignity of their own unbelief, endeavor to draw 
others into the same state of alienation from God 
and from hope, we are at a loss for words suffi¬ 
ciently strong and emphatic to express its enormi¬ 
ty. An infidel philosopher has observed, that “the 
damnation of one man is an infinitely greater evil 
than the subversion of a thousand millions of king¬ 
doms.” This is a testimony which he has borne 
against himself, and against all in every age who 
make light of the well-being of that imperishable 
spirit which the Almighty has breathed into the 
human frame. “ The subversion of a thousand 


156 


SERMON VII. 


millions of kingdoms !” Aye ; he might have con¬ 
verted his kingdoms into worlds, and his thousand 
millions into countless myriads, and still might he 
have said, that the damnation of one man is an in¬ 
finitely greater evil. They are to one immortal 
soul as less than the small dust of the balance. 
With all the marks of divine perfection enstamped 
on them, they yet have no conscious existence— 
and are susceptible neither of pain nor pleasure 
—and are but the material instruments which God 
has created for the gratification or the improve¬ 
ment of the intelligent beings that inhabit them. 
It is their fate to pass away as if they had never 
been; but the soul shall endure ; and after they 
shall have been blotted out from the wide expanse 
of universal nature, as having served the purposes 
of their formation, the soul shall still survive, and 
stretch out its existence into everlasting ages, and 
spend that eternity to which it is destined, either 
under the burden and the anguish of a just con¬ 
demnation, or in the enjoyment of exalted, unmin¬ 
gled, and never-ending bliss. 

It is to the forfeiture of this bliss, and to the 
infliction of that condemnation, that the soul is 
doomed, when it casts off its allegiance to God, 
and bids an infidel defiance to the revelation of his 
will, And, O, how “red like crimson” is the sin 
of that man, who, not contented with being him¬ 
self involved in such a fate, industriously and cru¬ 
elly labors to carry along with him his brethren 
and his fellow-men into the same “ place of tor¬ 
ment!” We condemn the midnight depredator 
who invades the property of his neighbor, and 
steals away the gold that perisheth. And in what 


SERMON VII. 


157 


terms ought we to reprobate that infinitely worse 
than midnight depredator, who, by the intrusion 
of his infidel opinions, has robbed the ingenuous 
youth of that peace of mind and purity of charac¬ 
ter which were dearer to him than all beside, de¬ 
nuded him of every hope that brightened his fu¬ 
ture prospects, and sent him down to perish in the 
pit of destruction ! We eye with horror, and 
speak with loudest indignation of the wretch who 
imbrues his hands in the blood of a fellow-crea¬ 
ture, and thus depriving him of life, cuts off the 
father of a family, and the benefactor of a neigh¬ 
borhood. And what should be our feelings of hor¬ 
ror, and what our language of indignation, regard¬ 
ing the still baser and more remorseless wretch, 
who murders the very soul of his associate or his 
friend, by plunging its faith, and purity, and ex¬ 
pectations, into the abyss of infidelity, and giving 
it over to the “worm that never dies, and to the 
fire that shall never be quenched,” and who spreads 
the deadly mischief as far as his arm can reach, 
or his influence extend ! 

If there be any now hearing me who are con¬ 
scious of having in one instance attempted the 
perpetration of such an atrocious crime, let them 
repent in dust and ashes; and if they see the suc¬ 
cess of their attempt in the acknowledged or prac¬ 
tical infidelity of the individual against whom it 
was made, let their penitence be still sadder and 
deeper ; and let them hasten, before death puts his 
negative upon all human activity, to repair the 
spiritual ruin they have so cruelly effected; and 
by their wisest instructions, their warmest remon¬ 
strances, their best example, and their most fer- 


158 


SERMON VII. 


vent and affectionate prayers, to deliver the victim 
of their infidel seduction “ out of the horrible pit, 
and out of the miry clay,” and again to “ set his 
feet upon the rock” of ages. Let them hasten to 
do this, lest the opportunity be suddenly and for 
ever lost—and then what ground of hope can they 
have that they shall “go away into life eternal,” 
when through their wicked and deliberate instru¬ 
mentality, even one human being is made to go 
away “into everlasting punishment?”—“Whoso 
shall offend one of these little ones that believe 
in me,” said Christ, “ it were better for him that a 
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he 
were drowned in the depth of the sea.” And, O 
think how much it will add to the pangs of your 
future misery, when you recollect amidst what you 
suffer for your own unbelief, the state of those 
whom you had led astray from their God and Sav¬ 
iour, and left to follow you to your dark abodes ; 
and when if, from selfishness or from pity, you 
should pray that one might be sent to them from 
the other world to warn them of their danger, it 
would be said, in accents that would kindle up a 
still fiercer flame in your agonized bosom, “If they 
believe not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead!” 




SERMON VIII. 


SAME TEXT. 

I come now to apply the subject I have been 
discussing, by addressing myself to various class¬ 
es of persons with respect to infidelity, consider¬ 
ed as an evil which either they themselves should 
carefully avoid, or which they may be the means 
of counteracting or of curing in the case of others. 

1. I begin with those who stand in the relation 
of parents. 

Of so much importance is the wise and faithful 
discharge of your peculiar duties, that if these 
were attended to as they ought to be, I should 
have little fear of checking the progress of infidel¬ 
ity, and of securing for religion that practical as¬ 
cendancy to which it is entitled. It may be said, 
without much exaggeration, that upon you every 
thing depends ; for it rests with you to determine 
what the coming generation shall be in their re- 


160 


SERMON VIII. 


gards to Christianity. The relation in which you 
stand to them, as it gives you possession of their 
opening minds, and furnishes you with so many 
opportunities of instructing them, and implies the 
happiest union of that affection and authority by 
which your instructions may be enforced, and af¬ 
fords you the best means, not only of guiding them 
in the path of knowledge, but almost of dictating 
the maxims and principles they are to adopt, and 
of regulating and controling the exercise of all 
their active powers—puts the formation of their 
character entirely into your hands, and burdens 
you in a great measure with the responsibility of 
their future treatment of the gospel. 

It may happen, iudeed, that the labors you be¬ 
stow upon your offspring, shall often be counter¬ 
acted, and sometimes nullified, by circumstances 
which you either could not anticipate, or against 
which you could not have provided, though you 
had foreseen them. This is what might be ex¬ 
pected from the nature and situation of man ; and 
it is what we see actually realized in the experi¬ 
ence of the world. But these are only exceptions 
to the general law that we have stated. And it 
still remains equally certain and important as a 
general laAv, that if unbelief shall continue to pre¬ 
vail, or if its prevalence shall become stronger 
and more extensive, it will be owing, in no small 
degree, to your culpable neglect, or your injudi¬ 
cious management of the children whom God has 
given you, and that all the hopes we can ration¬ 
ally entertain of our posterity being emancipated 
from the bondage of unbelief, and brought under 
the dominion of the gospel, are founded on the 


SERMON VIII. 


1G1 


diligent and conscientious fulfilment of parental 
obligation. 

To you who are parents, therefore, I would give 
the pre-eminence in the particular application of 
my subject. And I would beseech you to allow 
the impression to dwell upon your minds, that you 
must stand foremost in the ranks of opposition to 
the power of infidelity—that if you do your duty 
with becoming zeal and perseverance, the victory 
will speedily be gained—that if you desert your 
post, or act with languor aipl indecision, in vain 
will be the prowess, the toils, and the constancy, 
of all with whom you should have been associated 
in the holy contest. Do not fix your eye, as you 
are so apt to do, on those individual cases that 
have come under your observation, in which paren¬ 
tal fidelity has failed to produce the intended ef¬ 
fect; and do not quote those cases to justify your¬ 
selves, or to excuse yourselves for parental care¬ 
lessness. This would argue no more wisdom in 
your mode of judging, than you would recognize 
in that of the husbandman who should resolve not 
to sow his fields any more, because once or twice 
in his lifetime the seed had not sprung up, or the 
harvest had been scanty. There is a providence 
that governs the operations and phenomena of the 
human mind, as well as a providence that extends 
its care over the soil and the seasons. And you 
are bound to conform yourselves to the lessons 
which it reads to you ; and one of the most impor¬ 
tant of them is, that if you “ train up your children 
in the way they should go, when they are old they 
will not depart from it,” This lesson, addressed 
to you in thO' course of providence, and inculcated 


162 


SERMON VIII. 


upon you by the word of God, it becomes you to 
reduce to practice. In proportion as your en¬ 
deavors are skilful and vigorous, conformity to it 
must in general be attended with decided suc¬ 
cess. At any rate, it is strictly incumbent on you 
to perform the duty, and leave the consequences 
to God. And if you will attend to those instan¬ 
ces in which you either suppose or know that a 
parent’s best exertions have been fruitless and 
unavailing, attend to them only that you may dis¬ 
cover the causes which have interfered to prevent 
the ordinary result, and that by removing or avoid¬ 
ing these, if possible, in your own case, your work 
may be more efficient and more productive. 

You may think, perhaps, that your children are 
too young to be infected with infidelity, and that 
you need not therefore give yourselves much anx¬ 
iety about them on that point, or be at any great 
pains to guard them against the evil. But you 
are mistaken. That your children will not become 
infidels in the common acceptation of that word, 
so long as they continue children, may be very 
true. But do not you expect them to grow up to 
manhood ? Should not you even now train them 
up as carefully as you can, for its duties and its 
trials ? And if infidelity is one, and the greatest, 
of those moral calamities to which they may be 
afterwards exposed, are not you bound to treat 
them in such a manner as that they shall have the 
best chance of escaping it P This is all that we 
inculcate ; but it is a great deal. And we cannot 
be too earnest in exhorting you, and you cannot 
be too assiduous in your endeavors, to avoid eve¬ 
ry thing by which your children may at length be- 


SERMON VIII. 


163 


cohie an easy and unresisting prey to the seduc¬ 
tions of an unbelieving world, and to do every 
thing by which they may be possessed of that in¬ 
formation, those principles, and those habits, which 
shall fortify them against the t'emptatipn3 to irre- 
ligion and infidelity, that they must unavoidably 
meet with in the more advanced periods of life. 

Of your affection for your children, we enter¬ 
tain no doubt. Nature has implanted it in your 
hearts; and a thousand various considerations are 
ever constraining you to exercise and to show it. 
We do not therefore call upon you to be affection¬ 
ate to those to whom it is scarcely possible for you 
to be otherwise ; but we call upon you to give the 
sentiment its proper direction—to cherish it un¬ 
der the most enlightened views—to guide its op¬ 
erations in such - a way as to promote the highest 
interests of those whom you so tenderly love. 
And I would just ask you, my friends, what inter¬ 
ests these are ? The interests of their bodies, or 
the interests of their souls ? Their interests as to 
earth, or their interests as to heaven ? Their in¬ 
terests in time, or their interests throughout eter¬ 
nity? As professing Christians, or as having any 
idea and any feeling of religion left in you, it is 
impossible that you should hesitate about your an¬ 
swer to this question. You must acknowledge, 
that if your children live and die with the “ evil 
heart of unbelief,” they are miserable, in the worst 
sense of that word ; and if they live and die in the 
faith of the gospel, their happiness is great be¬ 
yond expression, and secure beyond disappoint¬ 
ment. Surely, then, the best proof of your .paren¬ 
tal affection is to be found in the anxious and un- 


o 


164 


SERMON VIII. 


remitting care with which you strive to make them 
sincere, and practical, and firm believers in Christ¬ 
ianity ; a care, by means of which you not only 
advance their own personal welfare, but contrib¬ 
ute, through their instrumentality, to the welfare 
of every coming generation. This is the plain 
statement of the case—the truth of which no so¬ 
phistry can disguise or pervert, and to which the 
conscience of every one of you must bear witness. 
Let us now see what is to be made of its applica¬ 
tion. 

To all the advantages of secular tuition, you are 
careful that your children shall be no strangers. 
It is your settled purpose, and your early endeav¬ 
or, to have them initiated into human science, and 
adorned with elegant accomplishments; and, wheth¬ 
er by the more substantial or the more showy, the 
more common or the more refined culture of their 
faculties, to fit them for the various occupations 
of a busy, a literary, or a fashionable life. And, 
for attaining this end, you grudge no expense up¬ 
on them—you withhold no counsel from them— 
you take a lively interest in all the successive steps 
of their progress—you applaud them when they 
are diligent—you remonstrate with them when 
they are idle—and, by every expression of your 
feelings, you intimate to them how much emphasis 
you lay on their being properly qualified to make 
a figure in the world. Well; they at length go 
into the world, and in the profession which they 
have chosen, or in the sphere ki which they move, 
you see that your plan of education has succeed¬ 
ed, and that they arrive at that eminence in the 
sight of men for which you had destined them, and 


S E R M O N VIII. 


165 


for which you had been so sedulous in preparing- 
them; and you lay down your head, and sleep in 
peace, because those who are so dear to your 
souls, and for whom you have made so many sac¬ 
rifices, and upon whom you have expended so ma¬ 
ny anxious thoughts, and lavished so many proofs 
of tenderness, are now prospering in the mercan¬ 
tile world, or shining to admiration in the gay 
world. 

But what has become of religion all this while ? 
How far has it been acknowledged in the educa¬ 
tion of your children ? What degree of anxiety 
have you felt—what measure of diligence have 
you employed, in making.them “wise unto salva¬ 
tion ?” What sort of scholarship, or what sort of 
training, have you given them for the eternity of 
their existence P In what manner have you pro¬ 
vided them against unbelief—against the tempta¬ 
tions that lead to it—against the guilt that accom¬ 
panies it—against the miseries that result from 
it? Has this been the subject of any concern 
with you at all ? Or, having engaged in the task, 
have you devoted yourselves to the execution of it, 
with that attention, and industry, and watchfulness, 
which its importance and its difficulty required ? 
This is an interesting and solemn inquiry, and leads 
to the most morpentous consequences. 

If in training your children you have neglected 
religion;—if you have not made it a regular and 
essential part of the system of instruction to which 
you have subjected them;—if you have allowed 
them to grow up in ignorance of him whb made, 
and of him who redeemed them ;—if you have 
dealt with them as if they had no souls to be sa- 


1C6 


SERMON VIII, 


ved, and no immortality to hope for, and no prepa¬ 
ration to make for it;—if your conduct toward.? 
them has impressed it upon their minds, that if all 
be well with them in this life, there is nothing’ 
else that they need to care for—what can the is¬ 
sue of all this be, but unqualified infidelity ? You 
send them abroad intb the world without that 
knowledge, and without those principles which 
might have protected them from its allurements, 
and thus give them up, inconsiderate and defence¬ 
less, to the seductions of unbelieving men, and 
leave them to fall with headlong violence, or with 
unsuspecting simplicity, into those vicious practi¬ 
ces which seldom fail to generate and to nourish 
a hardened opposition to every thing that wears 
the aspect of Christianity. Had you been studi¬ 
ous to make them acquainted with the great truths 
and precepts of the gospel—to foster in their sus¬ 
ceptible minds, feelings of respect for its authority 
and its usefulness—and to warn them of the dan¬ 
gers to which the abandonment of it would certain¬ 
ly expose them—had you done this, there might 
have been “ good hope of them through grace,” 
even though they should have swerved from the 
commandments of God, and entered on a course 
of dissipation and licentiousness, and practically 
relinquished the faith they had been taught. A 
providential occurrence, or a friendly reproof, or 
a painful disappointment, might have stopped them 
in their wayward career, and led them to serious 
reflection; and then there might have rushed into 
their ifiinds such a vivid recollection of all that 
they had once been told, and of all that they had 
once believed, and of all that they had once felt, 


SERMON VIII. 


167 


in relation to the things belonging to their peace, 
as by the divine blessing to recal them from their 
wanderings, and bring them back to their Saviour 
and their God. But, alas! if they have not been 
instructed, their situation is next to that of perfect 
hopelessness. They are not so likely to be touch¬ 
ed with compunction ; and even though they be, 
there are no latent resources that can be called 
forth—no good impression that can be revived— 
no materials upon which the Spirit may operate 
—no light to show them the path by which they 
might return; and unless they submit, in the ma¬ 
turity of age, to be tutored like children, and en¬ 
joy opportunities of being enlightened that are 
rarely afforded in such circumstances, they must, 
“ for lack of knowledge,” perish in the infidelity 
into which they have sunk through the inattention 
and negligence of their parents. And how many 
they may have drawn along with them into this 
perdition, it may well alarm you to conjecture ; 
and how much you are involved in this aggrava¬ 
tion of their guilt and ruin, it will be for you to 
account on that day when they and you shall stand 
together “ before the judgement-seat of Christ.” 

But the case is still worse, when your children 
have received from you, by direct conveyance, the 
elements of infidelity—when there is not merely 
that total neglect of their religious education which 
naturally leads to it, but an actual imbuing of their 
minds with its maxims, and an actual predisposing 
of their habits for its dominion. This happens 
when they hear you speaking lightly of religion, 
or see you treating it with contempt—when they 
observe you neglecting its ordinances, and viola- 
o 2 


168 


SERMON VIII. 


ting its precepts, as if in neither department it had 
any authority—when you inculcate upon them 
views of duty and motives of action, which have 
no reference to the gospel, or which are in direct 
opposition to it—when for their entertainment and 
for that of your guests, you pour forth your pro¬ 
fane and unsparing ridicule on its vital doctrines, 
and on all who preach and on all who love them 
—when in their presence you give ungodly coun¬ 
sel, or walk in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat 
of the scorner—when Christianity is systematical¬ 
ly excluded from your plan of life, and when, from 
your conversation and your conduct, they are obli¬ 
ged to conclude, that so far from enjoying any 
portion of your respect, it is the object of your con¬ 
tempt or hatred, your indifference or disbelief. 

In these circumstances, you do not so much 
prepare them for becoming infidels, as you send 
them away from you with the character already 
formed. You have introduced them into the path 
in which destroyers go, and in which they who 
walk, are themselves destroyed. You have preju¬ 
diced and you have hardened them against .every 
thing that can be advanced in favor of the gospel. 
You have taught them to open their mouths against 
the heavens, and to blaspheme the name, and de¬ 
fy the authority of Him, without reverence for 
whom all religion is vain, and all faith in it a mere 
pretence. You have inspired them with the in¬ 
clination, you have furnished them with the means, 
you have set them the example of leading others 
astray. You have sent them upon the scene of 
human life to fill up the Pleasure of their own de¬ 
merit, and to spread around them, wherever they 


SERMON VIII. 


169 


go, that rank and deadly contagion with which you 
had so wantonly polluted them under the sanction 
of paternal love. And though it is probable that 
the same carelessness, or the same aversion to re¬ 
ligion which made your domestic circle the school 
of infidelity, may prevent you from seeing any 
thing in their future conduct and fate that is cal¬ 
culated to excite compunction or regret, it may 
nevertheless come to* pass, that those on whom 
you flattered yourselves you had ever looked with 
fond affection, shall be as much ruined by you as 
if it had been your determined purpose to ruin 
them—that they shall go down to the grave amidst 
the horrors of a despondency, created by that un¬ 
belief which they learned from you, or in a pro¬ 
found insensibility to what lies before them, which 
originates in the same source, and is a still more 
fatal and distressing symptom of perdition—and 
that after their departure to their own'place, they 
shall have left behind them, in the wickedness and 
the misery of those whom they had prevailed up¬ 
on to forsake the ways of wisdom, many a heart¬ 
rending proof of the guilt that is accumulated, on 
your head for corrupting the principles of those 
whom it was your first duty, and should have been 
your fondest delight, to “ bring up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord.” 

But, my friends, laying these aggravated cases 
out of view, and supposing you to have such a re¬ 
gard for Christianity, and such a sense of parental 
obligation, as that you fail not to impart religious 
education to your children, a great deal depends 
on the mode and degree in which you do this, in 
o 3 


170 


SERMON VIII. 


order'to its being a preservative against infidelity. 
It is very possible for you to give religion such a 
subordinate place in your system of tuition, or to. 
manage the communication of its truths with so 
little judgement, or to have so much inconsistency 
in the whole transaction, as shall frustrate all your 
best intentions, and all your most zealous efforts. 
And, therefore, to this point I would request your 
attention for a little. 

Let me beg you to remember, in the first place, 
that true religion is either every thing, or it is 
nothing. There is no other object with which it 
can divide the homage and submission of mankind. 
And the moment that you allow any other object 
to take the precedence, that moment do you allow 
that the wisdom, and the will, and the authority 
of the Most High God, may be disregarded with 
impunity and with innocence ; and thus a founda¬ 
tion is laid, upon which unbelief to any extent 
may be built. When, therefore, you propose, leli- 
gion to your children as a thing not of paramount 
importance, as well as unquestionable verity, but 
only so important and so true as to deserve a large 
portion of Tegard—when it forms a part of the in¬ 
struction which you give them, but is just permit¬ 
ted to take its place om.the same level with secu¬ 
lar studies—when it is treated with so little cer¬ 
emony, that if there be a competition for preference 
among the various tasks in which they are enga¬ 
ged, its lessons are readily and invariably post¬ 
poned to every other—when it is seldom or never 
spoken of, except on a Sunday, when you do not 
think it right to speak to them on any thing els?, 


SERMON VIII, 


171 


and when it is thus packed into a single corner 
pf their time, while for all other topics, and for all 
other occupations, there is almost unlimited scope 
—and when, instead of being made to run through 
(the whole range of their employment, and to take 
the pre-eminence over every other consideration 
that comes before them, and to pervade, by its gov¬ 
erning and sanctifying influence, all that they say 
and do, it is kept by itself, and treated as a scheme 
of inferior or of doubtful moment, which must be 
taken up seldom, and which may be laid aside on 
any pretence whatever—when this is the case, I 
appeal to you, if you can reasonably look for any 
tiling like the growth of a firm and cordial faith in 
tie minds of your children, or if you may not rath¬ 
er expect to see- them drudging on with their x 
Christian exercises as long as you make a point 
of it, but abandoning them altogether as soon as 
they are left to the freedom of their own will, and 
practising on a larger scale, the lesson which you 
have taught them on a smaller scale, by renoun¬ 
cing as a thing of no consequence what they had 
been accustomed to see treated as a thing of little 
consequence. It is indispensably necessary, for 
guarding against this'event, that in communica¬ 
ting a knowledge of Christianity to your children, 
you be careful to press upon them its infinite mo- 
ipent, and give it a prominence far beyond all the 
cither branches of education put together. This 
is nothing more than what is due to its divine ori¬ 
gin and its intrinsic merits, and it is indispensably 
requisite for' overcoming that repugnance whicfy 
they naturally feel to its restraints, for establish¬ 
ing their belief in it as a dispensation of practical 
I o 4 


172 


SERMON VIII. 


and experimental truth, and for preserving thei f 
attachment to it amidst the temptations of thei r 
youthful years, and amidst the cares and trials 
the prosperities and adversities, of their mature r 
age. 

Let me beg you to remember, in the secomi 
place, that to store the memories of your children 
with the doctrines of religion, and even to secur e 
the assent of their understanding to the truth of 
all these, is not by any means sufficient to provid e 
against their degenerating into unbelief. In this 
case, religion has comparatively a feeble hold of 
them; and whenever there comes to be a struggle 
between-their corrupt passions and their intellec¬ 
tual views, it is not difficult to perceive that victo¬ 
ry must speedily declare for the former, and that 
their conquest will be as permanent as it is decis¬ 
ive. You must study,. therefore, to engage the 
hearts of your children in favor of religion. Yon 
must strive to make them in love with it, and to 
make them love it so ardently that they will be 
unwilling to disobey it, and still more unwilling to 
forsake it. You must endeavor to lead them un¬ 
der subjection to its power; to bring home its 
comforts to them; to animate them with its hopers; 
to give them a real and habitual feeling of its val- 
ute in all the varied circumstances of life ; and 'to 
inspire them with a relish for its peculiar plea s- 
ure^, and exercises, and duties. You must con¬ 
trive to find a place for it in all the different af¬ 
fections of their nature, and to interweave it no 
closely and intimately with every one of thes e, 
that nh ordinary temptations shall be able to break 
the union. And thus, whenever infidelity assail'.s 


SERMON VIII. 


173 


them, whether it addresses itself to their hopes or 
tlusir fears, their ambition or their self-love, their 
experience of what it would tear from them, will 
in these, and in every other respect, present a 
/eady and a powerful resistance, and keep them 
steadfast in a faith which is associated with all that 
it is interesting to know, and with all that it is 
j delightful to feel. 

Let me beg you to remember, in the third place, 
^ that all the religious instructions which! you con¬ 
vey to your children must be associated with a 
corresponding practice. They must be ^ery much 
influenced in their regards towards Christianity, 

, by the judgement which you form an4 express 
concerning it. If they are fully convinced that it 
is the object of your faith, this consideration alone 
will have a strong tendency to make it the object 
of theirs. But if they discover or suspect that, 
i notwithstanding your professions, you really do 
not believe in it, neithei will they believe in it; 
and in defiance of all that you may say to the con¬ 
trary, they will justify themselves for not believ¬ 
ing in it, by respect for your superior knowledge 
and more matured understanding. Now, they can¬ 
not suppose you to be believers, when they ob¬ 
serve you deliberately contradicting, by your con¬ 
duct, so many of the lessons which you inculcate 
upon them as enforced by divine authority. They 
cannot suppose you, for instance, to believe in the 
divinity of a system which says, “ Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy,” when they see you 
profaning it by business, amusement, and conviv¬ 
iality. They cannot suppose you to believe in 
the divinity of a system which says, « Thou shalt 



174 


S E R MON V 1 1 I. 


not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, 
when they hear yoi|i blaspheming that name evbry 
day of the week, anld every hour of the day. They 
cannot suppose you to believe in the divinity of a 
system which says ? “ Pray without ceasing,” when 
you give them reason to conclude, that prayer iV 
a stranger equally to your lips and to your heart. 
They cannot suppose you to believe in the divin¬ 
ity, of a system which says, “Be not conformed to 
the world,” when the world engrosses so m.uch 
of your regard, that it often comes between you 
and your sacred duties, and makes you live like 
men who are its acknowledged devotees. An.d so 
of a thousand other cases. When your children 
observe these things, it is their natural inference, 
though an erroneous one, that the system cannot 
be divine, which you treat with such marked ir¬ 
reverence; and while they may learn what you 
prescribe to them, and do what you require of them, 
from respect for your authority, or from fear of 
your displeasure, yet they can have no faith in 
Christianity as a dispensation from God. It grad-* 
ually loses any hold it may once have had of their 
minds. And as soon as they are at liberty to act 
according to their own pleasure, they follow yo ar 
example, and cast your admonitions behind thedr 
backs.—If, therefore, you would train them up i3o 
as effectually to guard them against the inroads 
or domination of infidelity, you must add to you r 
religious instructions, such a character as will stam (> 
the impression of sincerity on all the anxiety that 
you profess, and on all the admonitions that you 
give, and in this way combine together all the 
weight of parental conviction, and all the advanta ■ 



SERMON VIII. 


175 


ges of parental teaching, and all the influence of 
parental piety and virtue, and make them bear 
with united energy on the principles of your chil¬ 
dren, so as to keep them from the “evil heart of 
unbelief,” and prevent their departure “ from the 
living God.” 

II. I am now, in the second place, to apply the 
subject, by addressing myself to young men. 

Such of you as are already irreligious, will not 
easily be persuaded to desist from the course you 
are pursuing. Impelled by corrupt passion, or 
governed by evil habits, and supposing, as proba¬ 
bly you have brought yourselves to do, that the 
strength of the argument is all on your side, I 
cannot have much hope that you will listen to 
any entreaties and remonstrances of mine. And 
yet I may just ask you, if you have ever serious¬ 
ly considered the subject,—if you have given it 
the attention which its importance demands,— 
and if your infidelity be the result of sober and 
mature reflection, of such reasoning as your un¬ 
derstanding ought to be satisfied with in such a 
case, of an enlightened regard to what is most 
suitable to your character as rational beings, and 
best calculated to promote your highest and most 
permanent interests P I would request you to 
pause for a little in your career, and with earnest¬ 
ness and solemnity to put the question to your¬ 
selves, whether you be indeed convinced that 
Christianity is such a fable as you have contrived 
to think it—whether you be not following your 
inclinations rather than your judgement—whether 
-you be prepared in deliberate anticipation and 


176 


SERMON VIII. 


with unfaltering fortitude, to abide the final re¬ 
sult, whatever it may be, of your ungodliness and 
unbelief? And I would affectionately beseech 
you to remember that no time is to be lost— 
that if you persevere in thoughtlessness, in pro¬ 
fane practices, and immoral indulgences, you will 
soon become confirmed in your opposition to reli¬ 
gion, and incapable of any thing like an unbias¬ 
sed consideration of its merits—and that though 
now in the very morning of your days, and dream¬ 
ing of nothing but a lengthened life for study or 
for pleasure, as you may chance to use it, yet be¬ 
fore another year, or another month, or another 
week shall have elapsed, you may be numbered 
with the dead, and ushered into the very midst 
of all those great realities which you now treat as 
fiction or superstition, and find, when the discove¬ 
ry, alas! shall be too late, that there is a God 
whom you have forgotten, and a Saviour whom 
you have despised—a heaven into which you can 
never enter, and a hell from which you never can 
escape. 

But I am to speak chiefly to those young men 
who have been educated in the faith of the gospel, 
and who have hitherto been preserved from the 
contagion of infidelity. And to you I would offer 
the following counsels. 

Let me counsel you to bear in mind the inti¬ 
mate and inseparable connexion that there is be¬ 
tween moral conduct and religious faith. Your 
religious faith is still secure, and you have placed 
it on such grounds, and you possess it in such 
vigour and confidence, that you have no appre¬ 
hension of its decaying. But “ let 4 him that think- 


SERMON VIII. 


177 


eth he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” Your 
passions are strong and impetuous—the world is 
attractive to your gay and inexperienced minds— 
its pleasures are continually inviting you to par¬ 
take—and you have all the encouragement that 
can be afforded by fashion and example. Be 
therefore perpetually on your guard, that by pre¬ 
serving yourselves free from the pollutions of vice, 
you may also “ keep your confidence steadfast un¬ 
to the end.” Do not harbor the delusive idea for 
a moment, that though you lose your virtue you 
may retain your faith, and that though you go on 
to indulge in sin, your good principles may still 
continue to exist, and may revive again in their 
pristine strength at some future and more conve¬ 
nient season. One of the most common avenues 
by which infidelity enters the heart, is that of im¬ 
morality, and not to dwell on the obvious truth, 
that the belief which does not ensure obedience 
to the law of God, is dead and useless, you should 
recollect that there is nothing which tends so 
much to bias the mind against Christianity as 
wicked habits; and that even though you should 
afterwards be made sensible of the necessity of 
returning to the living God, from whom you had 
thus departed, you may find that the dominion of 
sin is too firmly established to be overturned, and 
that as you had lost your relish for the purity of 
the gospel, so you had proportionally impaired 
your conviction of its truth, and your attachment 
to its doctrines. Be exhorted, therefore, to walk 
with undeviating strictness in the path of right¬ 
eousness. Your progress in this path will not on¬ 
ly be a means of fortifying you against the inroads 


178 


SERMON VIII. 


of unbelief, but it will help to strengthen and ani¬ 
mate your confidence in the Redeemer, and to 
bind you more and more every day to that religion 
of whose sanctifying power you have thus the con¬ 
tinual witness in your own heart and in your own 
character. It will enable you to judge more clear¬ 
ly and more candidly of all its evidences. It will 
give you deeper impressions of its excellence and 
value. And thus, by the blessing of God, you 
shall be more effectually preserved from the “evil 
heart of unbelief.” 

Be cautious as to the books that you peruse. 
With respect to those books whose professed object 
is to decry Christianity, and to make you reject it, 
it may be justly questioned whether you should 
read them at all. If your faith is settled on 
grounds which you conceive and feel to be satis¬ 
factory, then to bring often before your view that 
which represents it as the effect of credulity or su¬ 
perstition, is only to run the risk of perplexing 
yourselves with doubts and difficulties which may 
be started in reference to any subject, and of en¬ 
feebling your conviction, which may be done by 
the mere repetition of an argument which in itself 
is utterly futile and inapplicable. But there are 
books of general instruction, and books of an en¬ 
tertaining kind, which are tinctured with the prin¬ 
ciples of infidelity, and in which these are so in¬ 
terwoven with truths- that you must receive, and 
with narratives, and descriptions, and characters, 
which interest and delight you, that you can hard¬ 
ly avoid imbibing the''deadly poison along with the 
wholsome food. Such books you will sometimes 
meet with in ranging over the field ofjiterature. 


SERMON VIII. 


179 


And I need scarcely tell you, that they are far 
more dangerous than the other. The other class 
of books forewarn you of what you may expect to 
find in them; and you either lay them aside, or 
you read them with the resolution to oppose their 
statements and their lessons at every page, or at 
every sentence. But this class of books are pre¬ 
sented to you under the guise of useful learning, 
or of innocent amusement; and, before you are 
aware, infidelity is infused into your understand¬ 
ing, or into your heart. You learn maxims, you 
acquire associations, you receive impressions as 
to matters of fact, which are inconsistent with 
Christian faith, and which are not the less influ¬ 
ential and pernicious, that they'have stolen in up¬ 
on your mind without your being conscious of 
their bearings on the subject of religion. Now, 
my young friends, the great rule to be observed 
here, is to go to the perusal of every book that 
you do peruse, under the government of religious 
principle, and with a thorough knowledge of reve¬ 
lation. If religious principie reigns in your mind 
as it ought to do, with unrivalled sway, you will 
be jealous of every statement, and of every insin¬ 
uation that seems to dispute or to question its au¬ 
thority ; and if you are as well acquainted with 
scriptural truth as you ought to be, you will be 
able to detect every thing as it occurs, which con¬ 
tradicts the divine testimony, or which would 
bring suspicion on the divine record. And thus 
being prepared to separate the chaff* from the 
wheat, you may not only prosecute your studies 
with safety, but derive edification from that which 
might otherwise have perverted, and misled, and 


180 


SERMON VIII, 


ruined you. It is highly becoming that you should 
increase your information, and improve your intel¬ 
lect ; but this must not be done at the expense of 
that which should be dearer to you than all the 
secular erudition of the world. Nor is it neces¬ 
sary that such a sacrifice should be made. Only 
be careful to exercise caution and vigilance ; for¬ 
tify your judgement with the decided and ever¬ 
present conviction of the truth and importance of 
Christianity ; leT your memory be amply furnished 
with its details ; let your feelings be pervaded by 
the love of all that it holds out to purify and to 
comfort you; and then there is no production of 
human genius, whether it be requisite for the im¬ 
provement, or useful for the recreation of your 
mind, which it will be dangerous for you to per¬ 
use. For supposing it to contain what is un¬ 
friendly to religion, you will either reject it alto¬ 
gether as unpalatable and disgusting, or you will 
peruse it when it promises to be substantially and 
generally useful, with such a discriminating per¬ 
ception of its excellencies and defects, and such a 
holy jealousy of every encroachment it may make 
on the sacred page of inspiration, as at once ta 
advance you in the path of knowledge, and to de¬ 
liver you from the snares with which that path is 
so often encompassed. 

It is necessary that you be very careful of the 
ideas which you attach to philosophy and religion, 
considered in relation to each other. There is 
something which a certain set of men call philo¬ 
sophy ; and though they have not thought proper 
to give us any accurate definition, or any minute 
description of it, they have contrived to speak of 


SERMON VIII. 


181 


it, as if it were well and universally understood, 
and as if all its maxims, and positions, and conclu¬ 
sions, were equally indisputable and important: 
And then they find out by this infallible standard 
that religion is fabulous and absurd, and in this 
very easy and convenient way, they ^set religion 
and philosophy in opposition to each other. Now 
let me counsel you to be on your guard against 
this abuse of terms. The philosophy of infidels is 
any thing they choose to make it, and must there¬ 
fore be freqnently in opposition to religion; but 
true philosophy is a very different thing ; and the 
more it is cultivated, the more does it tend to 
show us that religion is full of wisdom, without 
any admixture of error or of folly. Christianity 
addresses itself to the understanding of men as a 
system capable of proof, and as a system actually 
proved. And if it be proved to have come from 
heaven, what sort of philosophy must that be 
which contradicts the only wise God! There are 
many branches of general philosophy with which 
Christianity does not particularly intermeddle, 
though it gives an additional charm and value to 
them all, by connecting every subject of human 
contemplation with the Almighty and beneficent 
Parent of the universe. But it is a fact worthy of 
your attention, that the farther that scientific men 
have gone with their researches into the facts and 
history of natural science, the more nearly have 
their discoveries approached to what the sacred vol¬ 
ume tells us of the material world, and of its inhab¬ 
itants. And then, what system of philosophy has 
ever given such a satisfactory explanation of the 
phenomena which the moral world presents to our 

p 


182 


SERMON VIM. 


view, or enlightened us so much respecting the 
character of God, and the condition and duties of 
of man, or proposed such an efficient scheme for 
his-purification and his comfort, or disclosed such 
glorious prospects for him in a future state, or al¬ 
together afforded such a consistent, and honora¬ 
ble, and consolatory view of the Divine govern¬ 
ment ? This, my young friends, is the true phi¬ 
losophy, and this is peculiar to Christianity; and if 
Christianity were abolished, agreeably to the wish¬ 
es of the philosophers, falsely so called, all this 
would again give place to doubt, and darkness, and 
guilt, and despair; and it is in this that you and 
we shall rejoice for ever, when the vain idols of 
an infidel philosophy shall have tumbled into ruins, 
and when they that made them, and that worship¬ 
ed them, shall perish along with them. And if ev¬ 
er you are taunted with the weakness of prefer¬ 
ring the gospel to philosophy, remember, for your 
comfort and your encouragement, that the gospel 
has found some of its ablest advocates in the most 
enlightened of philosophers, and that it can ne¬ 
ver be an imputation on your understanding to 
believe in that which engaged the patient inquiry, 
and commanded the steady belief of a Locke, a 
Newton, and a Boyle. 

One word more, and I have done. One of the 
most formidable weapons that will be employed 
to seduce you into unbelief is ridicule. It has 
always been a formidable weapon in this warfare ; 
and if sophistry has slain its thnusands, ridicule 
has slain its tens of thousands. It is particularly 
trying to young minds. With them it is most 
successful. And therefore with them it is most 


SERMON VIII. 


183 


Frequently employed. And if it is that which 
“scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,-’ how will 
you be able to set it at defiance, and in spite of it 
to confess Christ before men P Pray that you may 
be delivered from the evil of this temptation. 
And study to contrast the vanity of those who 
would thus make you unbelievers, with the infi¬ 
nite importance of that from which they labor to 
detach your faith. What is there in the deris¬ 
ion of the wisest and wittiest of them, which 
should make you ashamed of the gospel of Christ ? 
Can their derision send the soul of man to perish 
with the clay which it animates—or break down 
the tribunal which is erected for the judgement of 
the world—or annihilate one attribute of Him who 
sitteth upon the throne ? Can you allow their un¬ 
hallowed jesting to conquer all the reasons which 
your understanding has approved, and which your 
heart has sanctioned, for believing in the great 
realities of revelation ? And if they shall unfor¬ 
tunately prevail, where will be the proud scorn of 
the philosopher, and where will be the souls of its 
infatuated victims, on the great day of reckoning 
and retribution? What will they who uttered it 
plead in your behalf, or in their own ? And, O 
how shall you be able to stand when charged with 
the guilt of braving the frown of Omnipotence, 
and renouncing the love of your Redeemer, and 
spurning away from you all the glories of an of¬ 
fered salvation, that you might escape the laugh¬ 
ter of the fool, which is but for a moment ? Let 
me conjure you, my young friends, to assume the 
courage which it becomes you, as good soldiers 
of Christ, to feel and to display. Let “ none of 




104 5EKMON VIII, 

these things move you.” Stand fast in the faith 
of Jesus; and let the world scowl or let it 
laugh as it may. And if at any time you feel as 
if it were about to overpower you, just set the 
book of inspiration and the book of infidelity be¬ 
fore you, and say, which of them you will choose 
for your comforter and your guide:—And just 
think of the grave in which you must soon lie 
down, and say, whether would you be laid in it, 
in despondency as to all that lies beyond it, or in 
the hope of a glorious resurection :—And just 
think of the judgement that will come after death, 
and say, whether you would have the sentence, 
“ Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king¬ 
dom which is prepared for you from the founda¬ 
tion of the world,—or that other sentence, “De¬ 
part ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared foi* 
the devil and his angels ?” 



* 



SERMON IN. 


SAME TEXT. 

III. I would now address myself to those who 
occupy the higher stations of society. 

And you I would caution against infidelity for 
your own sake. It is just as sinful and as ruinous 
in your case, as it is in that of the obscurest and 
meanest of the people. Christianity was promul¬ 
gated as a plan of salvation for you as .well as for 
them. Its benefits are promised to none but those 
who believe. Its threatenings are denounced 
against all, without respect of persons, who do not 
believe. And if you have rejected it, I am not 
entitled to say, that there is any thing else for the 
greatest and the proudest of you, than “ a certaiil 
fearful looking for of wrath and fiery indignation, 
that will devour you as the adversaries” of God. 
There are differences of human condition; and 
if among these it has fallen to your lot to be ele¬ 
vated above others, that gives you certain advan¬ 
tages which are denied to them, and certain claims 
which they are not entitled to prefer; but it is 

p 2 


186 


SERMON IX. 


none of the advantages of your condition, and 
none of the claims arising out of it, that you 
should be exempted from the obligation which lies 
upon all to whom the gospel is offered, to receive 
it and to submit to it. To you as sinners it is of¬ 
fered; and your refusal to accept of it is the seal 
of your guilt, and the token of your perdition. 
So long as you are in the land of living men, you 
may wrap yourselves up in the robes of adventi¬ 
tious dignity, and make the distinctions which 
God permits for the benefit of the social state, an 
occasion of exalting yourselves against his will, 
and go on to despise his message, as if this were 
one of the privileges by which you are distin¬ 
guished from the multitude ; but know that, in the 
sight of Him who rules among the inhabitants of 
the earth, as well as over the hosts of heaven, you 
are lower than the lowest of our race who fears 
his God and loves his Saviour. And know also 
that the period is approaching, when your world¬ 
ly greatness shall be humbled to the dust—when 
death shall strip you of all the external endow¬ 
ments, and of all the high consideration with which 
you are now invested—and when thus denuded and 
defenceless, you shall stand before the tribunal of 
that Judge in whose eye the rich and the poor, 
the great and the small, are upon one common 
level, and be doomed to that “ everlasting destruc¬ 
tion with which all those shall be punished who 
know not God and obey not the gospel of the 
Lord Jesus Christ.” 

But I am to address you chiefly for the sake of 
others—as those whose conduct affects society at 
large. Your influence in forming the opinions 



SERMON IX. 


187 


and regulating the practice of those who move in 
the lower walks of life, is universally acknow¬ 
ledged. And this influence is of such constant 
and powerful operation, that the character of the 
one class is uniformly a very correct index to the 
character of the other. Your rank, your opu¬ 
lence, your education, your power—these and 
their kindred properties cast an air of splendor 
and superiority around you, which causes you to 
be looked up to with a steady and respectful eye. 
Feelings of reverence and admiration being thus 
associated with every view that can be taken of 
your condition, the principle of imitation operates 
of course ; and, as far as it can be practised, a 
conformity to what you are, and to what you do, 
will be studied and attained. In general, the ef¬ 
fect is insensibly produced. Those upon whom 
it takes place are not always aware of its cause. 
And even at the very time, perhaps, that they are 
expressing displeasure and hatred against you, 
they are surrendering themselves unconsciously to 
your guidance, in the most important parts of hu¬ 
man conduct. Frequently, however, they know 
and feel that you are the model which they fol¬ 
low. They intentionally set it before them for 
their direction. And they confidently appeal to 
it in every disputed case, as a proof that their be¬ 
havior is right and justifiable. At any rate, it 
is a fact ascertained by invariable experience, and 
agreeable to the reason and nature of the thing, 
that the influence which you possess over them is 
of such potent and perpetual operation, that from 
the aspect which they present to us, we can know 
p 3 


188 


SERMON IX. 


precisely the example which you have been setting 
before them. 

Were their character such as it ought to be. 
and such as you would wish it to be, I have no 
doubt you would readily admit the fact that I have 
stated, and take credit to yourselves for the good 
that you had thus been instrumental in accomplish¬ 
ing. But if their character be of an opposite 
description, your admission of the fact will be at¬ 
tended with more difficulty, and you will be anx¬ 
ious either to deny it altogether, or to receive it 
with such qualifications as may exonerate you 
from the charge of misleading and corrupting 
them. But it is impossible either to deny or to 
qualify the fact. It is a fact which our acquain¬ 
tance with the nature and circumstances of man 
would have led us to anticipate beforehand. It is 
a fact to which the history of every country and 
of every stage of society bears the most unequiv¬ 
ocal attestations. It is a fact which has always 
been acknowledged as both obvious and impor¬ 
tant. And it is a fact which must not be ques¬ 
tioned, till you can produce an instance in which 
the people at large have been profligate in princi¬ 
ple and practice, while piety and virtue have been 
flourishing among the higher ranks; or an in¬ 
stance in which the higher ranks were irreligious 
and immoral, and yet the people at large were liv¬ 
ing strictly in the fear of God, and in the obedi¬ 
ence of his commandments. You can produce no 
such instance. Nor is it possible for such an in¬ 
stance to take place, till human nature and human 
society be differently constituted from what they 
are. 


SERMON IX. 


189 


The conclusion, then, that we are necessitated 
to draw, is this ; that if impiety, and vice, and in¬ 
subordination, prevail among the inferior classes 
of the community, the guilt of this does not rest 
with them. They indeed are guilty, and they are 
accountable; and if they repent not, they shall 
not escape the wrath of God. But you are par¬ 
takers of the guilt: to you it may in a great meas¬ 
ure be ultimately traced: you' have not employed 
the means with which Providence has furnished 
you for preventing it: you have occasioned it by 
indulging in a course of life, and holding forth an 
example which you should have known were to 
produce and encourage the evils to which we have 
alluded, and which do exist to an extent that eve¬ 
ry good man must deplore. I do not say this 
for the purpose of dividing the blame between the 
upper and lower classes, or of showing that the 
former are as much implicated as the latter ; but 
for the purpose of leading your views to one great 
source of the disease, and thus pointing out the 
remedy by which it may be effectually cured. 
And, my friends, you must do me the justice to be¬ 
lieve that in what I have already said, or in what 
I am still further to say on this subject, I mean no 
particular application to you, as if you were above 
all others involved in the argument. I am not ac¬ 
customed to flatter you—but neither would I choose 
to single you out for censure. I must be under¬ 
stood as addressing the higher ranks in general; 
and, alas ! those of them who need the discussion 
most seldom bring themselves within the reach of 
the ministry of God’s word. But our observations 
may, perhaps, go home to the consciences of some 
p 4 


190 


S £ R M 0 N IX. 


of you now hearing me ; and they may not be un¬ 
profitable to any of you* 

On the grounds, then, already stated, we lay it 
down as an undeniable proposition, that the varied 
corruption which so lamentably prevails among 
the lower ranks of our population, is owing in no 
slight degree to your example. 

And, first , as to the irreligion that is to be 
found among them. You may allege that you 
esteem Christianity very much, and that you have 
always supported its establishment in the country,, 
and that in all your intercourse with the people 
you never advised them to trample upon it, but 
urged upon them its excellence and necessity. 
True ; but what of all this, if you have at the 
same time afforded them substantial and satisfy¬ 
ing evidence that you have no real faith in it, and 
no cordial regard for it, and that you were 
merely employing it as an engine to govern 
them , while for yourselves you would take the 
liberty to live according to your own pleasure ? 
Have you been given to profaning the name of 
God, and cursing men who are made after the si¬ 
militude of God ? Have you been habitual despi- 
sers of those ordinances which the author of the 
gospel has instituted, and by which it is, in a great 
measure, that the very knowledge of religion is pre¬ 
served and perpetuated in the Avorld P Have you 
been indulging yourselves freely in those acts of 
intemperance and impurity, for which things’ sake 
the wrath of God is denounced against you as the 
children of disobedience ? Have you been run¬ 
ning that incessant round of frivolous and fashion¬ 
able amusements which is so destructive of all se- 


SERMON IX. 


191 


rious thought, and so inconsistent with the high 
calling of the Christian ? Have you been doing 
all this ? And have the people seen you doing it ? 
And are they so stupid, think you, as not to con¬ 
sider it in the light of a declaration, much more 
expressive than any verbal declaration can be, 
that religion is not the object of your belief, and 
that at the very best you regard it as but a politi¬ 
cal fable, necessary for the poor, but useless to the 
rich ? Observe, now, this is the lesson which you 
have really taught them, and which you have 
taught them in the most emphatic manner. And 
is it wonderful that they should have learned it, 
and that they should practise it ? It is too agree¬ 
able to their natural depravity not to be welcomed 
when inculcated by such teachers. It will be 
treasured up with the more avidity, when they see 
you making use of religion merely to keep them 
in a state of subjection and restraint. And be¬ 
sides, it is quite unreasonable to expect that they 
should retain it, when they see you disdainfully 
casting it away. It is unreasonable to expect 
this, so long as you claim the respect of those 
who are beneath you in worldly station, and make 
it one of your complaints against them that this 
respect is withheld. Do not you see that you are 
inconsistent in this ? Their respect for you—their 
submission to your influence—their habitual and 
reverential looking up to you, is the very cause 
of that which you condemn. They feel such de¬ 
ference for your judgement, even when you are 
most anxious that they should not know its decis¬ 
ions, or that knowing they should disregard them, 
that they will not believe the gospel because you 


192 


SERMON IX. 


do not believe it. So long as they had the idea 
that it was the object of your faith and attachment, 
it was also the object of their faith and attachment. 
But whenever they discover that you are hostile 
to it, they also become its enemy by becoming 
your ally, and serving you and following you in 
the cause of irreligion and infidelity. 

It is, indeed, one pleasing and consolatory cir¬ 
cumstance, that so many of the higher ranks seem 
to feel a sincere regard to religion, and that, while 
they make it a matter of personal concern, they 
also take a lively interest in its prosperity. This, 
I say, is a pleasing and consolatory circumstance ; 
and I trust that the instances of it will become 
more numerous and more decided every day. 
And you may be assured that its effects on the 
religious character of the people will be propor¬ 
tionally observable. But you must not be sur¬ 
prised, my friends, if a considerable time elapse 
before any thorough improvement is accomplished. 
It is much more difficult to bring men back to the 
right path, than to seduce them into the wrong 
one. They have acquired many evil habits which 
must be overcome. You have therefore a great 
work of reformation before you; and to bring it 
to a successful issue, it behoves you to exert 
yourselves with ardent zeal, with united energy, 
and with unwearied perseverance. And if, be¬ 
sides your personal godliness, you make a con¬ 
scientious use of that influence which you pos¬ 
sess, in securing faithful and pains-taking pastors 
for the people, in providing more carefully for the 
religious education of their children, and in giv¬ 
ing efficacy to the various means which already 


SERMON IX. 


193 


subsist for advancing among them the interests of 
Christianity, we may look at no very distant peri¬ 
od for such an improvement in their character as 
will be equally delightful to the Christian and to 
the patriot. 

In the next place, as to the immorality that pre¬ 
vails among the people. You will probably allow 
that in many of its features it may be directly 
traced to the example of their superiors, because 
in numerous instances the vices in which they in¬ 
dulge are the same in both. But I am anxious 
that you should not rest contented with this lim¬ 
ited deduction. I am anxious to impress you 
with the idea, that irreligion is the parent of im¬ 
morality—that if religious principle exists, im¬ 
moral example will generally be withstood—and 
that if religious principle be destroyed, then, in¬ 
dependently of bad example, and in spite of good 
example, profligacy will be the general and final 
result. The prevalence of licentiousness and 
crime has infidelity as its primary and continually 
operating cause: and whether this infidelity has 
originated in your disregard to the Christian faith, 
or whether it has been generated by other means, 
one thing is certain, that those who have been se¬ 
duced by it, were prepared for that apostasy by 
what they saw of your speculative or practical ir¬ 
religion, and that they will in all probability con¬ 
tinue in it so long as your influence is employed 
to give it countenance. And to expect good 
morals and virtuous actions, or any thing but 
wickedness and abomination, from those whose 
minds are enslaved by infidelity, is not less ab- 


surd than to expect “ grapes from thorns, or figs 
from thistles.” 

It has been affirmed, indeed, that we wrong¬ 
fully impute the immoralities of the lower classes 
to the example of the higher: and the latter may 
say, “ Do we set an example to the former of 
falsehood, and theft, and robbery ?” Perhaps 
not; but that is not the question. If by your 
conduct you destroy in their minds the principles 
of religion which alone can make them holy, you 
may be said, with perfect propriety and justice, 
to teach them whatever practices natively flow 
from that destruction of their religious principles. 
You have your peculiar temptations, and they 
have theirs. And their modes of sinning will ac¬ 
cordingly be on many occasions, and in many re¬ 
spects, different from yours. But if you have ta¬ 
ken away from them that which disposed and en¬ 
abled them to resist temptation, from whatever 
quarter it might come, and of whatever kind it 
might be, then surely it is no excuse to say that 
they have not seen you commit offences to which 
you had no allurements, but to which they had 
many. You have opened the floodgates; and the 
impetuous torrent takes its own course, and will 
desolate whatever comes within its reach ; and of 
all its devastations you are the cause, though they 
have reached much farther, and extended much 
more widely, than you either wished or intended. 
If you spread infidelity, you spread immorality ; 
and therefore, as you lament and deprecate the 
immorality which deforms the whole face and 
character of every community that it pervades, re- 


SERMON IX. 


195 


turn to the faith of the gospel ; give it all the 
sanction and all the patronage which your emi¬ 
nent stations are capable of affording; and labor 
to make the people unlearn the infidel lessons 
which they have read in your example, and infuse 
into them, and nourish in them, the belief of that 
doctrine which is the only spring of holiness, as 
it is the only fountain of consolation. 

In the last place, so far as there is a revolu¬ 
tionary spirit among the people, that also is the 
fruit of irreligion and infidelity. A revolutionary 
spirit implies such a heartless disregard of every 
thing that is good, and orderly, and comfortable, 
in the social state—it leads to the perpetration of 
so many aggravated crimes—it produces so much 
misery to individuals and to families, to all of ev¬ 
ery rank and condition of life, that it cannot find 
a harbor in any mind which has not banished far 
from it the fear of God, the love of man, and the 
hopes of the gospel. And therefore you not only 
find it invariably connected with an impious con¬ 
tempt of the principles and precepts of Christiani¬ 
ty, but you always see those who are laboring to 
diffuse it among the people, artfully preparing the 
way by doing every thing to engender and to 
cherish the “evil heart of unbelief.” In their 
way to the overthrow of social order and submis¬ 
sion to lawful authority, they are sure, as a pre¬ 
liminary both necessary and effectual, to attempt 
the overthrow of the Bible as a divine record of 
faith and duty. 

Now, though you who occupy the higher sta¬ 
tions of life must be decidedly and irreconcileably 
hostile to the designs of revolutionary men, yet 


196 


SERMON IX, 


you may not be innocent of lending assistance to 
their designs, and of doing that by which their 
success must be promoted and secured. And this 
is the case, so far as by your language or by your 
conduct you have given countenance to that irre- 
ligion which, independently of this, is so natural 
to the depraved heart, and which, implying a 
proud impatience under the restraints imposed by 
the authority of Heaven, gives birth to the same 
proud and restless impatience under all the re¬ 
straints that are enacted by human authority, even 
when sanctioned by the maxims of revelation. 
There is no rational, nor effectual, nor possible 
way of eradicating revolutionary principles, and 
preventing a revolutionary crisis, but by sending 
abroad upon the public mind the salutary and cor¬ 
recting influences of true religion—by bringing 
men back from the remorseless maxims of infidel¬ 
ity, to the mild, and holy, and elevating system of 
the gospel—and by subjecting them to the faith 
and the dominion of him who brought with him 
the message of “ peace on earth and good will to 
men,” who teaches at once to “ fear God and to 
honor the king,” and who forms between the 
rulers and the governed that tie of kindness, of 
duty and affection, which removes all corruption 
and oppression on the one hand, and all ground¬ 
less jealousies and wanton disobedience on the 
other, and unites them both in every purpose and 
in every measure, which has for its object the 
peace and the prosperity and the happiness of 
the commonwealth. 

If, then, my friends, you would break down and 
annihilate the schemes of revolutionary men, you 


SERMON IX. 


197 


must do it by the weapons which are only to be 
found in the armory of God. You must do it by 
the instrumentality of “pure and undefiled re¬ 
ligion.” Other means may be useful as auxil¬ 
iaries ; but this alone is mighty for the full and 
final accomplishment of your purpose. And re¬ 
member that the “form of godliness” will not 
do. The assumption of that will only confirm the 
people in their infidelity, and provoke them to a 
more open impiety, and a more rancorous hostili¬ 
ty. If they see you putting on religion merely 
as a cloak to hide your profaneness and your 
vices;—if they see you prostituting its sacred 
rites for the sake of office and of power ;—if they 
see you employing it as a political machine to 
keep down the boisterous passions which you can¬ 
not otherwise restrain ;—if they see you deliber¬ 
ately trampling on the obligations and duties of 
religion during all the season of public tranquilli¬ 
ty, and then flying to it in times of anarchy and 
danger, merely from the impulse of terror;—or if 
they see you making it the mere pander of party 
politics, and associating all its truth and all its 
importance with interested views of civil govern¬ 
ment, and with the miserable shiftings of human 
opinion—if they see this, what effect can it have 
but to degrade Christianity still more in their es¬ 
teem, and to ripen them still more speedily for 
deeds of rapine and of blood? You must become 
truly religious. You must put your hearts under 
the sway of the Lord Jesus Christ. You must 
prove the sincerity of your faith by the holiness of 
your conduct. You must be “righteous before 
God” and before men, “ walking in all the com- 


198 


SERMON IX. 


mandments and in all the ordinances of the Lord 
blameless.” And thus uniting the power and the 
attractions of personal religion, with the com¬ 
manding influence which you derive from the ex¬ 
alted stations to which Providence has raised 
you, what blessings might we not expect to the 
rich, and to the poor, to our country, and to the 
world! 


IV. I now address myself to those who fill the 
inferior stations of society. 

Do not suppose, my friends, though the classes 
that are above you in station contract a very ag¬ 
gravated guilt in consequence of setting a wicked 
example before you, that you are therefore blame¬ 
less Avhen you imitate that example. This is a 
conclusion which you are extremely apt to draw, 
and in which you too often take refuge, to save 
yourselves from the reproaches of your own con¬ 
science, and to excuse the vices and the follies in 
which you are naturally disposed to indulge. 
But remember that you have the knowledge of 
what is wrong,—that you have the power of re¬ 
sisting the temptations to commit it, which may 
be presented to you,—and that you are accounta¬ 
ble to your Maker for every thing that you do 
with a willing mind. Whatever alleviation it may 
be of your sin, that you have been in some meas¬ 
ure misled by those who should have employed 
their influence to keep you in the faith and obedi¬ 
ence of Christ, and in whatever degree it may in¬ 
crease their condemnation, that either with inten¬ 
tion or by carelessness, they have contributed to 
your apostasy, it is impossible that any such cir- 


SERMON IX. 


109 


cumstances can exculpate you from the charge of 
rebelling against the God of heaven and earth, or 
shield you from that “ wrath which cometh upon 
all the children of disobedience.” If you know 
what is evil, and do it, and if you know what is 
good, and do it not, “ to you it is sin.” And your 
sin is the greater, and your punishment will be 
the more certain, because belief and infidelity, the 
path of righteousness and the path of unrighteous¬ 
ness, the happy termination of the one, and the 
miserable termination of the other, were distinct¬ 
ly set before you; because if there were allure¬ 
ments drawing you aside, there were also motives 
that should have determined you to go straight 
onward; because, if the scene of lawless indul¬ 
gence on which you have entered, was pictured 
out to you in gay and fascinating colors, you had 
also been often and affectionately warned against 
the dangers which these concealed ; and because, 
notwithstanding all this, you have “chosen dark¬ 
ness rather than light,” and preferred the guidance 
of corrupt and fallible men, to the lessons and the 
commandments of the living God. 

But while I say this, in reference to any plea 
you may derive from the example of your superi¬ 
ors in station, I must also take notice of another 
source of infidelity, against which it may be ne¬ 
cessary to put you upon your guard. There are 
men in the world who, in their conversation or in 
their Avritings, Avould persuade you that Chris¬ 
tianity is your foe, and that it is your interest to 
disbelieve it, because it sanctions those distinc¬ 
tions in outAvard condition, and those institutions 
of civil government, which serve to keen vou, as 


200 


S E R MO N IX. 


they term it, in a state of depression and bondage. 
And as this is an argument for infidelity which is 
not only employed, but which is likely enough to 
be often listened to with patience and with pleas¬ 
ure, I beg your attention to the following remarks. 

Consider, my friends, in the first place, that 
Avhen Christianity sanctions the distinctions of 
outward condition and the institutions of civil 
government, it only sanctions what arises out of 
the natural frame of society, and what universal 
experience shows to be both necessary and useful. 
It requires nothing more than what you your¬ 
selves have observed, to convince you, that to put 
an end to outward distinctions, and to regular 
government, would not only be productive of 
vast mischief to the community at large, but is 
utterly impracticable, so long as man continues to 
be constituted as he is, and so long as he inhabits 
such a system of things as that in which his Cre¬ 
ator has actually placed him. Had Christianity 
attempted to overturn these, or had it proceeded 
on the supposition that they did not exist, this 
would have manifested such ignorance in its au¬ 
thor, as to prove that it had not come from God. 
That very feature of it which consists in its re¬ 
cognition of the great fundamental principles and 
unalterable facts, which are either essential to 
the existence, or conducive to the prosperity of 
the social state, instead of furnishing an objection 
to it, is one of the many evidences which demon¬ 
strate it to be a revelation from Him who formed 
and who governs us, and consequently to be wor¬ 
thy of our unlimited submission. 


SERMON IX. 


201 


But you will observe, in the second place, that 
Christianity evinces its divine origin, by going a 
step farther, and inculcating those maxims which 
tend to regulate the conduct of every class, and 
in this way to promote the welfare and happiness 
of all. It does not dictate to the poor, and leave 
the rich to their own guidance. It does not en¬ 
join submission on subjects, and permit their ru¬ 
lers to exercise the power entrusted to them as 
they may think proper. Look into its pages, and 
you will find it having no such respect of persons 
as some of its insidious enemies would have you 
to believe. You will find it most impartial in its 
dealings with the consciences, and the characters, 
and the interests of mankind. You will find it 
laying its authoritative injunctions on all of every 
description, and in every relation ; and prescrib¬ 
ing to them'the duties that are severally and pe¬ 
culiarly incumbent on them, and putting them on 
the same level with respect to their hopes of fu¬ 
ture reward, and their obligations to future pun¬ 
ishment. And if men would only feel and act 
towards one another as the gospel of Christ ex¬ 
horts, and entreats, and commands them to do ; 
or could they be prevailed upon to make this the 
object of their sincere and constant endeavours, 
we should anticipate for them all the comfort and 
enjoyment of which they are capable in this im¬ 
perfect state of being. A very slight acquaint¬ 
ance with the spirit and precepts of Christianity, 
must satisfy you of the correctness of this state¬ 
ment. And, therefore, if the treatment which you 
receive from those above you be oppressive, or in¬ 
jurious, or inhumane, let the demerit of all this 


202 


SERMON XX. 


rest with them to whom it attaches, and let it not 
be imputed to Christianity, which has not only 
given no countenance to such proceedings, but 
which has prohibited them by the strictest enact¬ 
ments, and under the severest penalties. Rather 
be constrained by this circumstance, to put a firm¬ 
er faith in it, and to cherish a stronger attachment 
to it. And since it bears such a decisive mark of 
having proceeded from the God of truth and mer¬ 
cy, and since it interposes its great authority, in 
order to secure for you whatever is just, and lib¬ 
eral, and kind, from those who might otherwise, 
as the history of the world shows us, have been 
disposed to keep you in cruel subjection, consider 
the men as neither just to it. nor merciful to you, 
who would shake your confidence in its truth, or 
destroy your reverence for its laws. 

And then you must recollect, in the third place, 
that if Christianity be a religion from God, you 
are undeniably bound to follow its direction in the 
whole path of life. Whatever you may see oth¬ 
ers do, and whatever counsel others may give 
you, and whatever evils others may inflict upon 
you, it is not to the influence of these things that 
you must surrender yourselves—it is to the words 
of him who “ speaketh from heaven ” that you 
must attend, and it is by his instructions that you 
must be guided in all your ways. There may be 
some of his precepts which you will find it difficult 
to obey. He may require sacrifices of temper, 
and of passion, and of worldly advantage, which it 
will be painful to make. He may place you in 
circumstances from which the most powerful ten¬ 
dencies of your nature will prompt you to escape, 


SERMON IX. 


203 


even at the expense of honor and of virtue. But 
still you must never forget that Divine authority 
is paramount to every thing ; and that, acknow¬ 
ledging such authority to belong to Christ, the ac¬ 
knowledgement must be embodied in a conscien¬ 
tious obedience to all that he commands. And 
if he says that you should be “ content with such 
things as ye have,” that you should be patient 
under provocation and injury, that you should be 
“subject to the higher powers,” that you should 
“ give honor to whom honor, and tribute to whom 
tribute, is due,” and that you should “ follow the 
things that make for peace ”—if he says all this, 
as he does say all this, and a great deal more to 
the same purpose, then it behoves you not only to 
practise it, but to practise it with that unqualified 
and uncomplaining submission, which you owe to 
the ruler of the world. You have in this case no 
alternative. Whenever you embrace Christianity, 
the precepts that I have now quoted from its mor¬ 
al system, demand your obedience as much as any 
other precept which it contains, and to violate or 
disregard them, must necessarily involve you in 
the guilt of practical infidelity. 

I would press it upon you, in the next place, 
that Christianity, which some would have you to 
reject because it tends to degrade you and to 
keep you down, tends in fact, to exalt you to a 
higher place of estimation than you could other¬ 
wise have reached. There is nothing in it which 
dooms you to indigence or obscurity; on the con¬ 
trary, it inculcates that line of conduct, which is 
best calculated to secure worldly prosperity. But 
its peculiar excellence consists in this, that what- 

Q2 


204 


SERMON IX. 


ever be your external condition, it teaches and 
enables you to sustain a character which raises 
you far above all secular distinctions, and gains 
for you the approbation of every one whose appro¬ 
bation is worthy of being possessed. Respecta¬ 
bility, properly speaking, does not belong to mere 
station, but is the personal quality of him by whom 
the station is occupied. If you have the religious 
principles and the moral deportment which God 
requires you to have, then you are those Avhom 
God delighteth to honor. And upon him whom 
God delighteth to honor, though Ire dwell in the 
meanest hovel upon earth, it is not the preroga¬ 
tive of the highest of the children of men to look 
down with indifference or contempt. Angels re¬ 
gard him with complacency. And heaven is pre¬ 
pared for his reception. Had not Christianity 
shed its light upon the world, you could never 
have attained this spiritual rank. You should still 
have been as degraded in your moral, as you are 
destitute, perhaps, in your worldly circumstances. 
And, remember, it is back to this degenerate state 
that the apostles of infidelity Avould carry you. 
No, my friends, tell them that you knoAv better in 
Avhom, and in what you have believed; that you 
have learned in the school of Christ, that to be his 
faithful and obedient disciples, is infinitely prefer¬ 
able to all the wealth and Avisdom of a present 
world; that you will not, for Avhatever they may 
promise you of liberty, break that golden cord 
which binds you to the service of him who casts 
his compassionate eye upon you, and from the 
midst of all your indigence, “ calls you to glory 
and to virtueand that in spite of their most art- 


SERMON IX. 


205 


tul sophistry, you cannot but cling fast to a reli¬ 
gion which teaches you, the poor ones of the earth, 
to rise to an eminence in the sight of God, which 
not many rich, not many wise, not many noble, 
have been able to attain. 

And let me finally remind you, that the greater 
the hardships are with which you have to strug¬ 
gle, and the severer the distresses that you have 
to bear, the more firmly ought you to retain your 
hold of Christianity ; because the more urgent, in 
these circumstances, is your need of comfort, and 
from Christianity alone can you draw the comfort 
that you require. Can those who advise you to 
abandon it secure you against calamity ? Or when 
calamity comes, have they any thing that deserves 
the name of consolation to administer ? Nay, were 
you to walk in their counsel, would it not aggra¬ 
vate all the miseries you feel a thousand fold, and 
would it not diminish, in the same proportion, 
whatever is fitted to support and to solace you ? 
I trust that you are wise enough to see, that when 
you deny the truth and set at nought the author¬ 
ity of the gospel, you must at the same time, de¬ 
nude yourselves of every comfort which it gives, 
and of every hope which it inspires. And I trust, 
therefore, that when infidels endeavor to destroy 
your belief in it, you will steadfastly resist their 
efforts, and that while you are ready, if it shall be 
so ordered, to go into a still meaner and poorer 
condition than that which you now hold, you are 
also determined to carry along with you this heav¬ 
enly record, which teaches you to confide in the 
wisdom and compassion of that Being who regu- 
q3 


206 


SERMON IX. 


lates all your lot, and to look forward to an inher¬ 
itance on high, which is “ incorruptible and unde¬ 
filed, and that fadeth not away.” 

V. The subject may be improved by its applica¬ 
tion to the preachers and ministers of the gospel. 

It is the great object of the sacred office, to 
maintain a constant and powerful opposition to 
infidelity; and though the truth of Christianity 
does not in any degree depend on the conduct of 
those who fill it, yet certainly it may be conclu¬ 
ded, from the very institution of our order, and 
from the nature of our functions, that Christianity 
will flourish or decay, according as we are faithful 
or unfaithful to the trust committed to us. A dil¬ 
igent and zealous performance of our duties must 
necessarily do much for upholding the faith of our 
people, and extending the influence, as well as the 
knowledge of the gospel. Inattention to these 
duties must necessarily go far to keep our people 
in ignorance of the gospel, or to make them indif¬ 
ferent to it, and to cherish in them the “ evil heart 
of unbelief.” These are results that we may al¬ 
ways anticipate. Scripture speaks of them in the 
language of promise and of threatening; and ex¬ 
perience is not wanting, in the state and history of 
the world, to show that we may count upon them 
with absolute certainty. 

A complete illustration of this point is at pres¬ 
ent impracticable. But there are two particular 
views on which I would offer a few observations ; 
the one relating to our general conduct, and the 
other to our mode of preaching. 


SERMON IX. 


207 


First, as to our general conduct. One of the 
many ways by which infidels have labored to de¬ 
stroy the faith of mankind in the religion of Christ, 
is that of representing it as a mere human device, 
for gratifying the ambition of the priesthood, and 
keeping the multitude in due subjection. And if 
they can point to any facts which may help to jus¬ 
tify this representation, it is easy to see*how wide¬ 
ly and efficiently it must operate to produce the 
effect at which they aim. Now, no facts can an¬ 
swer this purpose so well, as those which are 
found in the clerical character. If our deportment 
is at variance with the principles w'hich we pro¬ 
fess to inculcate; if, while we pretend to be lead¬ 
ing others to heaven, we are fixing our own at¬ 
tachments and setting up our own rest upon 
earth ; if anxiety to secure our secular emolu¬ 
ments preponderates over our anxiety to discharge 
the duties for which alone these are given; if we 
go through our work in that careless or perfunc¬ 
tory manner, which shows that we engage in it 
merely as a matter of necessity; if we are ready 
to sacrifice whatever is peculiar to our spiritual 
office, at the shrine of worldly ambition, or of 
worldly amusement; if we are satisfied with ma¬ 
king the system that we teach an instrument for 
securing popular favor, or if we are in the habit of 
employing it as a tool for serving men in power, 
and promoting the interests of a party, and of at¬ 
taching no more importance to it than what is de¬ 
rived from the accomplishment of these objects; 
in all these cases we give a distinct and most in¬ 
telligible proof that we have not submitted our¬ 
selves to the authority of the gospel, that it has 


208 


SERMON IX. 


not come home to us as a communication from 
God, that we consider it as little else than an en¬ 
gine of political craft, or of temporal interest, and 
that when we talk of its divine original, and 
of its spiritual nature, and of its eternal prospects, 
we are saying what we do not feel, and teaching 
what we \do not believe. This is immediately 
laid hold of by the enemies of Christianity; and 
our inconsistency is converted by them into an ar¬ 
gument against it. Without their aid, the people 
cannot fail to be struck with the actual testimony 
which we thus bear in our lives, against all that 
we address to them from the pulpit. And it is no 
great impeachment of their understanding to say, 
that they discover in it a sufficient apology, if not 
an enlightened reason, for discrediting and renoun¬ 
cing what they have hitherto received as a divine 
revelation. It is thus that we who are called and 
who undertake to defend religion, become promo¬ 
ters of infidelity, and, “ causing the people to err, 
by our lies and by our lightness,” become the 
most formidable adversaries of that truth, without 
the belief and obedience of which, neither they 
nor we can possibly be saved. 

For avoiding these pernicious consequences, it 
is necessary that our conduct shall be in accord¬ 
ance with our doctrine. It must be seen, from 
unequivocal symptoms, that we are sincere and 
decided in our attachment to the religion that we 
teach. By its influence on our temper and de¬ 
portment, we must evince that we have taken up¬ 
on us the office of proclaiming and defending it, 
not for the sake of filthy lucre, but from a convic¬ 
tion of its being God’s message to the children of 


SERMON IX. 


209 


men. By the concern that we take in the spirit¬ 
ual welfare of those committed to us, we must 
leave*them no room for doubting that we regard 
it as of vast and everlasting consequence to their 
souls. And by excluding all the pursuits of van¬ 
ity and selfishness, and all unworthy deference to 
the censures and applauses of the world, and all 
the meannesses and artifices of a crooked policy, 
from our private and from our public ministrations, 
we must show that, in our esteem, Christianity is 
as pure and exalted in its nature, as it is unques¬ 
tionable in its truth, and incalculable in its impor¬ 
tance. In this way we shall not only prevent the 
enemies of the gospel from attacking it, as they 
have too often and too successfully done, with 
weapons furnished by our negligence and miscon¬ 
duct, but we shall give a tenfold energy to every 
argument that we employ in its support; and, 
while we keep believers steadfast in the faith, we 
shall also be instrumental in giving assurance to 
the wavering mind, in reclaiming those who had 
departed from Christ and from the living God, and 
in adding to the triumphs of Christianity over that 
extended and guilty opposition, which it has to en¬ 
counter in all countries and in all ages. 

Secondly , as to our mode of preaching the gos¬ 
pel ; I hold that unless we make “ Christ and him 
crucified the great theme of our addresses, we 
not only cannot expect to succeed in our endeav¬ 
ors to maintain his religion, but must rather lay 
our accouht with seeing it languish and decay 
within the sphere of our pastoral labors, and of 
our pastoral influence. 

There are many reasons for concluding that it 
is on account of the gospel having been so often 


210 


SERMON IX. 


preached without any distinct reference to the 
atonement and righteousness of Jesus, that there 
comes at length to be no belief in him at' all, 
among many who once adhered to his religion, and 
that many who, but for such misrepresentations of 
that religion, might have been led to embrace it, 
persevere in their infidelity. If those to whom we 
preach, are acquainted with the Scripture record, 
they cannot fail to see that Christ is represented 
there as something more than a mere teacher and 
example of righteousness. They must perceive 
that he is also held out as a Saviour from the guilt 
and the dominion of sin. They must be sensible 
that the very truth respecting his meritorious obe¬ 
dience to the death of the cross, which is treated 
with so much neglect, is the most prominent and 
the most frequent of all the truths which compose 
the system of Christianity, and that if it be taken 
away, Christianity is stripped of its distinguishing 
characteristic, and is no longer what it appears to 
be in the book of inspiration. And what is the 
effect of this ? Why, that our testimony fails in 
creating a single favorable impression in their 
minds in behalf of the gospel; for they are neces¬ 
sitated to infer, either that we are ignorant of the 
gospel, and consequently that our opinion respect¬ 
ing its credibility and its truth is totally undeserv¬ 
ing of respect; or that, knowing what the gospel 
really is, we are yet bold enough to mutilate and 
pervert it, and therefore, that our avowal of belief 
in it, and of attachment to its Author, must be 
nothing better than affectation and hypocrisy. 
And nothing can follow from the ignorance or the 
dishonesty which we thus exhibit to them, in our 


SERMON IX. 


211 


mode of preaching Christ, so far as our preaching 
can effect their minds, but prejudice against that 
very system which it should have been employed 
to uphold and to recommend. 

But again, supposing that we preach Christ to 
men who are not conversant with the gospel re¬ 
cord, and who take their notions of its contents 
chiefly from the information of others, the conse¬ 
quence will be the very same. Keeping out of 
view all that is peculiar to Christianity, as a plan 
of grace and of redemption, we hold it up only as 
the depository of something which they may ob¬ 
tain in almost as great perfection from some other 
source. We set it before them as containing lit¬ 
tle else than a code of moral precepts, accompa¬ 
nied with one or two doctrinal statements, all of 
which they may find without any difficulty in the 
sayings of Socrates and of Cicero, or which they 
may be competent to ascertain with tolerable ac¬ 
curacy by the exercise of their own powers. And, 
of course, they will regard it as of very inferior 
importance : they can feel no lively interest in its 
author, and no gratitude to him for benefits com¬ 
paratively so useless : they will make no exertion 
to cherish respect for it in their own minds, or to 
maintain its influence among their brethren; and 
thus it will gradually lose its hold of their belief, 
and leave them to decline into utter infidelity. 
Such is tlfe case with many who will not study 
Christianity for themselves, and who submit, in a 
great measure, to the guidance of those whom 
they see professing it as a doctrine from heaven. 
And such is substantially the case with those who 
are unable to examine the external evidences of 




212 


SERMON IX. 


the gospel, and who are principally susceptible of 
influence from perceiving its perfect adaptation to 
their spiritual circumstances. If we show them 
the gospel as a system in every respect suited to 
their need; if we hold out Christ to them as full 
of grace and power to deliver them from all the 
sins and miseries of their fallen state ; if we press 
him on their attention in all the excellence, and 
efficacy, and glory, of his rpediatorial work, there 
is awakened in their minds a powerful interest in 
behalf of him to whom their faith and their attach¬ 
ment are demanded, and they feel, in his complete 
and admirable suitableness to all their necessities 
as guilty, corrupted, and ruined creatures, an ar¬ 
gument for the divinity of his mission infinitely 
superior to all the arguments which all the wisdom 
of the schools has ever been able to supply. And 
this is the argument which we employ, and this is 
the effect which we are likely to produce, when 
in preaching Christ to them we give a just and 
conspicuous place to the merits of his cross. But 
if in preaching him we keep the doctrine of a cru¬ 
cified Saviour, and the various peculiar doctrines 
connected with it, out of view; if we merely ac¬ 
knowledge Christ in vague and general terms ; or 
if we confine ourselves to the recognising of him 
in his prophetical and in his kingly office, we pre¬ 
sent to them a cold and barren field of specula¬ 
tion ; there is nothing in it to engage tfieir affec¬ 
tions—to rouse them by a sense of danger, or to 
relieve them by a sense of safety; the gospel is 
denuded of those charms by which alone it is at¬ 
tractive to fallen creatures ; it no longer contains 
the promise and the offer of that eternal redemp- 


SERMON IX. 


213 


tion which they are conscious that they need, and 
for which they would chiefly look, in the undertak¬ 
ing of a deliverer sent down from heaven ; and, 
therefore, it is regarded by them with a great por¬ 
tion of that indifference which is nearly allied to 
unbelief, and those to whom our preaching Christ 
should have conveyed a decided testimony in fa¬ 
vor of his religion, are thus provoked to set them¬ 
selves against it as a scheme unsuitable to their 
case, and unworthy of their reception. 

This part of the subject admits of a much more 
lengthened illustration: but the remarks that we 
have made may suffice to show, that when we 
preach Christ as we ought to do, we will distinct¬ 
ly acknowledge, and even lay particular emphasis 
on the merits of his cross. This we will do, not 
only from a regard to the truth of the case—not 
only from a desire to honor our Redeemer as to 
every part of his character and work—not only 
from a principle of consistency between our inward 
belief and our external avowal of it—not only 
from these motives, important and worthy as they 
are ; but also from the persuasion that it is only in 
this way that our preaching can ever prove instru¬ 
mental in supporting the credit and extending the 
influence of Christianity in the world. 


FINIS. 



















































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